Who was he?
by Wisdomsqueen
Summary: Leo, Jason and Piper all have questions about the legendary Percy Jackson. What a better way to have their questions answered than to read his story and thoughts. My version of the classic "Reading the books" fanfic. (Annabeth reads with Jason, Leo and Piper as well).
1. Intro

**A/N**

 **Disclaimer- Rick Riordan owns the wonderful world of Percy Jackson not this author. He also owns everything in bold which isn't Author's Notes.**

Leo was working on the Argo II, again. He half-heartedly swept a hand across his forehead in a poor attempt of wiping the sweat from his brow leaving a lingering trail of grease as he did. Lately Leo had been working relentlessly on the ship, it was the most important thing he had ever built and he needed it to be perfect. He was so caught up in his work that he didn't even notice when his cabin mate opened the door.

Nyssa lent against the large door frame of Bunker 9 sighing as she watched a very sleep deprived teen put together the most complicated piece of machinery she'd ever seen. Leo's constant slavery he had put into this ship was starting to get to him and Nyssa had noticed. He'd been absent from countless dinners, lunches and breakfasts and could be heard stumbling to the Hephaestus cabin late at night, she was worried about him.

Right now Leo was working tirelessly, bent over a piece of celestial bronze and was hammering it into the right shape. Nyssa walked over to him dodging scrap metal at every step. As Nyssa got closer to Leo she could truly see the way his bones were protruding more prominently than they had before and the missing weight from his already skinny arms. Even though Nyssa knew how annoying it was to be disrupted in the middle of work she pulled the handle of the hammer out of Leo's hands before a disgruntled "Hey!" could be muttered, because he _had_ to stop.

Leo looked up at her in clear annoyance, "Whatever do you want?" he said.

"Get up," she ordered. Leo reluctantly obliged standing eye to eye with his half-sister. Nyssa looked into Leo's sunken cheeks and prominent dark circles and knew that this had to end. In a very sincere tone she said "Leo, take a break."

Leo raised an eyebrow and opened his mouth as if to speak before Nyssa cut him off. "I'm serious Leo. You're taking a break. Go shower, eat, sleep, whatever. But you under no circumstance are coming back here again for at least a week."

"But Nys-"

"But nothing, you're going to work yourself to death. It's not as if we're completely useless you know, we can manage with you for a week."

The corners of Leo's mouth turned up as he looked at his sister. "Whatever you say sis," he grinned. Before Nyssa could argue Leo pulled her into a quick hug and started walking back to his cabin. Leo knew the importance of the ship but he also knew he needed to look after himself better for he couldn't remember when exactly he'd had his last shower or when he'd had a good night's sleep.

Whilst walking back to the Hephaestus cabin he passed the arena where a large crowd had gathered. He put off thoughts of showering just to see what was happening. Then he saw it, Connor Stoll was duelling Clarisse and he looked mad. Leo stood memorised in the battle, spear against sword. Clarisse was clearly the better fighter but Connor was driven by anger and dodged and parried her strikes like second nature. All of a sudden Clarisse lost her footing as Connor kicked the back of her knees, she slammed onto the floor. Connor's sword was at her throat, "Never disrespect him again," Connor spat.

The fight was over as Connor was attacked by his other half; Travis Stoll starting a series of cheers all around. As Clarisse rolled herself off the floor with a sour look on her face Leo overheard someone say, "That's what you get when you talk crap about Percy Jackson."

This comment left Leo mildly confused and slightly impressed. _That's what Connor was so worked up about?_ Leo had known that Percy was clearly an important dude, with the whole camp tearing the world apart to search for him, then be willing to risk everything to get the Roman camp in the hopes that he would be there. But starting a fight over just one sly comment made about him seemed a little extreme. He almost felt a little jealous and he didn't even know the guy!

Which lead him to thinking. _What was Percy really like?_

Piper had just finished/escaped the climbing wall which had left her almost hairless on her arms and legs, which had gotten her to thinking, _if I keep this up I won't ever have to shave again._ She thought about this as she skulled down her much needed water when she heard a blood curdling scream. She whipped around to face the sound only to be ploughed down by a mass of brown fur. She saw Drew laughing hysterically as her vision narrowed and slowly faded to black.

When Piper woke the first thing she noticed was the throbbing in her head, then that she was laying on a makeshift bed in what she assumed to be the Big House. She tried to lift herself up onto her elbows but was stopped by the searing pain that had erupted in her right temple. She lay back down, defeated until she spotted a glass about three feet away filled with a honey coloured liquid. She extended her arm as far as it would go in an attempt to reach the glass but fell a centimetre or so short.

Sighing she shifted uncomfortably towards the end of the bed. She reached for the glass once again but as her fingertips grazed the rim she toppled off the bed into a disgruntled heap on the floor. The pain in her temples was unbearable as she clutched the sides of her head in a futile attempt to soothe the pain before reaching for the amber liquid once more. This time she gripped it tightly and downed the glass in one go. Full well knowing that that was a bad idea but was only concentrating on getting rid of the torturous pain inside her head. Almost immediately after she sculled the glass the white hot pain dulled to a bearable throbbing. Piper sighed in relief.

With her head a lot clearer Piper decided not to wait around to find out what the hell had happened but instead to search out Chiron. After carefully putting the empty glass down onto the table, she ventured into the corridor of the Big House. She passed the empty rec room, then a room identical to the one she had just come out of. Before she saw the familiar doorway into Chiron's office. She knocked gently on the wooden door before pulling it open and stepping inside.

She was greeted with old records, books, Party Pony t-shirts and a walls filled by photos of old demigods. Her eyes were immediately drawn to the most recent photo where she spotted a much younger Annabeth smiling widely, with her arms around a curly haired satyr and a green eyed boy. The second boy with his dark hair and mischievous grin could only be Percy Jackson, the one they were searching for.

It was obvious he was important to Annabeth, Chiron and the entire camp but her question was why? _Why was Percy Jackson so admired?_

Annabeth was sitting in Poseidon's cabin again. It was where she felt closest to Percy. Whether it be the salt that lingered in the air, the photos that lined his wall or even the blue of the room. It was just so… him. If she closed her eyes she could almost imagine that he was here sitting on the bed beside her, she could almost imagine that he'd never left. But that's what hurts the most. He didn't leave, he didn't intentionally break her heart or tear up her soul. She couldn't even hate him for leaving her because it wasn't his fault. Hera had taken him in the midst of one of the best summers of her life and it broke her heart.

She didn't even notice she was crying until she saw the tears splash onto her jeans. It just wasn't fair. She didn't even know if he was alive. It scared her that he could be dead and she wouldn't even know, and they would keep searching but only find a corpse.

As she cried she lay her head against his pillow and eventually drifted off into an uneasy sleep. Then the nightmare began. For there was Percy, looking at her with those dazzling eyes and that easy smile before lurching forward, like he'd been hit from behind. He immediately crumpled to the floor withering in pain, screaming in agony. Annabeth tried to run to him, screaming but her legs and voice wouldn't cooperate. Then she saw what had hit him, an arrow was protruding out of the small of his back, his Achilles heel. Blood was everywhere. Percy looked at her with pain straining his green eyes as he choked out his final words, "Why didn't you save me?" Before his eyes turned to glass and his heart stopped.

"ANNABETH!" Jason shouted, shaking her awake. He had heard the screaming from his cabin and had come running.

Annabeth still didn't open her eyes but she kept screaming. "PERCY!" as tears poured down her face. Jason kept shaking her until the screaming stopped and Annabeth whispered, "Why didn't I save you?"

Jason desperately tried to get her to open her eyes. "ANNABETH WAKE UP!" Suddenly Annabeth bolted upwards and sprung her eyes open, revealing the look of pure terror in them. Jason narrowly avoided being knocked over by Annabeth but didn't miss the fear in her eyes. Quickly her eyes softened and she began to cry quietly to herself. Jason was at a loss of what to do, for he knew hugging her or telling her everything would be alright would only be awkward and insincere. So as her tears fell he fumbled around for a tissue in his pocket.

By the time he had found one Annabeth had already begun wiping her tears quickly away and trying to compose herself. Jason offered her the tissue with which she accepted gratefully.

"I'm sorry you had to see that," Annabeth said her voice gravelly.

"No, no you shouldn't be sorry. But um, are you okay?" Jason blurted out uncomfortably. Annabeth tilted up the corners of her lips and nodded. _It was just a dream, Annabeth. Just a dream._

"But thanks Jason, for before." She took a deep breath. "I, I just wish he was here you know?"

Jason really didn't know what to say to that, he'd known Percy had meant a lot to Annabeth but he had never really seen just how much. A tiny voice in the back of his mind wondered if anyone missed him like that but he dismissed the thought.

But it did get Jason wondering. " _What makes this Percy guy so special?"_

Next thing he knew Jason was sitting in a circle in his cabin with Leo, Piper and Annabeth. A loud 'pop' sounded and a thick envelope dropped in Piper's lap. She picked it up carefully and read who it was addressed to;

"To Jason, Piper, Leo and Annabeth,

Zeus's Cabin, Half-Blood Hill

Long Island, New York."

Piper opened the letter and read aloud.

" _Dear demigods,_

 _Lately Piper, Jason and Leo have all been thinking about Percy Jackson. If he was a good leader, how powerful he was, was he a good person and all that stuff. So all of you (minus Annabeth) just really want to know what was he really like? So I the most coolest and awesomest god ever decided to ask the 9 muses if I could borrow their copy of this hero's adventures. There are 5 books all in his point of view so you get a better understanding of his personality. And I included Annabeth because I figured she would also like to see his point of view on things ;)._

 _From the hottest god,_

 _Apollo_

 _P.S. Time will be frozen while you read so preparations for your ship will not be put on hold, yada, yada._

 _P.P.S Annabeth no spoilers please._ "

As soon as Piper finished reading the envelope another 'pop' sounded and it evaporated.

Then with a blinding light and yet another 'pop' a book appeared on Jason's lap. He read the title aloud, " **Percy Jackson and the Lightning thief.** "

Annabeth stared at the book with nostalgia, remembering their first quest. If only things were that simple now she thought sadly. She would give anything to be back retrieving Zeus's lightning bolt with Percy and Grover than to be here without him.

"Okay, I guess I'll read first," Jason volunteered.

 **I ACCIDENTALLY VAPOURIZE MY MATHS TEACHER**

 **A/N**

 **Hope you have enjoyed will update ASAP as I'm almost finished chapter 2.**

 **:)**

 **Lots of Love,**

 **Wisdomsqueen**


	2. Ms Dodds

**A/N**

 **Disclaimer- I don't own anything in bold.**

* * *

Jason cleared his throat and opened the book to the first chapter.

 **1\. I ACCIDENTALLY VAPORIZE MY PRE-ALGEBRA TEACHER**

"Well, I guess that's something you don't do every day," Piper deadpanned.

"But you have to admit that it is a pretty interesting chapter title," Jason reasoned, looking between the other three demigods for agreement. Leo just shrugged while Annabeth seemed to be staring intently at the wall. To surpass the awkward silence Jason continued reading.

 **Look, I didn't want to be a half-blood.**

As each of the demigods reflected on their past trauma they silently agreed with the statement.

 **If you're reading this because you think you might be one, my advice is: close this book right now. Believe whatever lie your mom or dad told you about your birth, and try to lead a normal life.**

Jason raised his eyebrows in surprise.

"You know, I reckon if you were the child of a minor god that would work," Jason contemplated looking to Annabeth for conformation. Annabeth scrunched her eyebrows and nodded thoughtfully.

 **Being a half-blood is dangerous.**

Leo scoffed thinking about his quest with Jason and Piper and their even more dangerous quest to come.

 **It's scary. Most of the time, it gets you killed in painful, nasty ways.**

Subconsciously Annabeth pressed her fingers to the 8th clay bead on her leather necklace, as it was encrypted with the names of the demigods who died in the titan war. But despite this her mind kept wondering back to her dream of Percy.

 **If you're a normal kid, reading this because you think its fiction, great. Read on. I envy you for being able to believe that none of this ever happened.**

 **But if you recognize yourself in these pages-if you feel something stirring inside-stop reading immediately. You might be one of us. And once you know that, it's only a matter of time before they sense it too, and they'll come for you.**

Everyone assumed that 'they' were monsters.

 **Don't say I didn't warn you.**

Leo smirked and said, "You didn't warn me."

Piper just sighed in exasperation.

 **My name is Percy Jackson.**

Leo had the sudden urge to say "No its Jason," but from the solemn looks on everyone's faces he knew it was certainly not the time.

 **I'm twelve years old. Until a few months ago, I was a boarding student at Yancy Academy, a private school for troubled kids in upstate New York.**

 **Am I a troubled kid?**

Annabeth snorted, which earned her a few odd looks from the others.

 **Yeah. You could say that.**

This caused a small smile to creep up onto Annabeth's face and Piper eyed the blonde with suspicion.

 **I could start at any point in my short miserable life to prove it, but things really started going bad last May, when our sixth-grade class took a field trip to Manhattan- twenty-eight mental-case kids and two teachers on a yellow school bus, heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art to look at ancient Greek and Roman stuff.**

"Ooh," Jason winced. "That is not a good combination."

"Yeah, it sounds pretty bad," agreed Piper.

"Pretty bad? More like torture," chimed Leo.

 **I know-it sounds like torture.**

Leo gave the others a pointed look to which Piper rolled her eyes.

 **Most Yancy field trips were.**

 **But Mr Brunner, our Latin teacher, was leading this trip, so I had hopes.**

Annabeth's brain was reeling. _Brunner? Where have I heard that name?_

 **Mr Brunner was this middle-aged guy in a motorized wheelchair.**

Annabeth clicked her tongue as it dawned on her. " _Of course"_ , she thought. _Chiron._

 **He had thinning hair and a scruffy beard and a frayed tweed jacket, which always smelled like coffee. You wouldn't think he'd be cool, but he told stories and jokes and let us play games in class. He also had this awesome collection of Roman armour and weapons, so he was the only teacher whose class didn't put me to sleep.**

Jason was starting to think that maybe Percy wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed, then mentally reprimanded himself as he had never been to a school outside that of New Rome.

 **I hoped the trip would be okay. At least, I hoped that for once I wouldn't get in trouble.**

Leo blew air out of his nose in a soft sort of laugh causing quite a few stares from everyone.

 **Boy, was I wrong.**

 **See, bad things happen to me on field trips. Like at my fifth-grade school, when we went to the Saratoga battlefield, I had this accident with a Revolutionary War cannon. I wasn't aiming for the school bus, but of course I got expelled anyway.**

Jason voice cracked as he read the last line and began to laugh.

"Oh my gods, I love this kid," Leo laughed. Piper and Annabeth joined in, the mental image of an 11 year old firing a canon at a school bus was too much too handle.

 **And before that, at my fourth-grade school, when we took a behind-the-scenes tour of the Marine World shark pool, I sort of hit the wrong lever on the catwalk and our class took an unplanned swim.**

"That's even better," Leo exclaimed bursting into another fit of giggles.

Annabeth was smiling a full proper smile and shaking her head slightly at Percy's exploits.

 **And the time before that… Well, you get the idea.**

Leo made a mental note to ask this guy about the excursions when they met.

 **This trip, I was determined to be good.**

 **All the way into the city, I put up with Nancy Bobofit, the freckly, redheaded kleptomaniac girl,**

"Kleptomaniac?" Jason questioned.

"Someone who steals constantly," Piper answered before adding sheepishly, "It's what they thought I was after that BMW incident."

 **hitting my best friend Grover in the back of the head with chunks of peanut butter-and-ketchup sandwich.**

" _Peanut Butter and Ketchup?"_ Leo thought.

 **Grover was an easy target. He was scrawny. He cried when he got frustrated. He must've been held back several grades, because he was the only sixth grader with acne and the start of a wispy beard on his chin.**

"Oh, I am so showing Grover this description," Annabeth mumbled through her smile.

 **On top of all that, he was crippled. He had a note excusing him from PE for the rest of his life because he had some kind of muscular disease in his legs. He walked funny, like every step hurt him, but don't let that fool you. You should've seen him run when it was enchilada day in the cafeteria.**

Annabeth burst out laughing. Maybe she was a little sleep deprived or a little emotionally worked up from her current stress about Percy but at that moment nothing seemed funnier to her than Grover running through the cafeteria holding his crutches uselessly in his hands all to get an enchilada.

Piper, Jason and Leo all shared a concerned look as Annabeth wiped her eyes and clutched her stomach. When her laughter died down Jason decided to begin reading quickly to avoid the awkward situation.

 **Anyway, Nancy Bobofit was throwing wads of sandwich that stuck in his curly brown hair, and she knew I couldn't do anything back to her because I was already on probation. The headmaster had threatened me with death**

"A WHAT now?" Piper exclaimed.

 **by in-school suspension**

"Oh, don't worry guys."

 **if anything bad, embarrassing, or even mildly entertaining happened on this trip.**

"Well that sucks," Leo frowned.

" **I'm going to kill her," I mumbled.**

 **Grover tried to calm me down. "It's okay. I like peanut butter."**

"Surely not in your hair, buddy," Jason remarked.

 **He dodged another piece of Nancy's lunch.**

" **That's it." I started to get up, but Grover pulled me back to my seat.**

" **You're already on probation," he reminded me. "You know who'll get blamed if anything happens."**

 **Looking back on it, I wish I'd decked Nancy Bobofit right then and there.**

Despite the unusually hard laughter from Annabeth since the laughing fit she seemed far more relaxed into the story. Her grey eyes no longer depicted sadness and loss but rather nostalgia and happiness. Piper smiled slightly in noticing this.

 **In-school suspension would've been nothing compared to the mess I was about to get myself into.**

 **Mr Brunner led the museum tour.**

 **He rode up front in his wheelchair, guiding us through the big echoey galleries, past marble statues and glass cases full of really old black-and-orange pottery.**

 **It blew my mind that this stuff had survived for two thousand, three thousand years.**

"More," Jason, Piper and Annabeth chorused.

"Illuminati," Leo whispered to Piper who stifled a giggle.

 **He gathered us around a thirteen-foot-tall stone column with a big sphinx on the top, and started telling us how it was a grave marker, a stele, for a girl about our age. He told us about the carvings on the sides. I was trying to listen to what he had to say, because it was kind of interesting, but everybody around me was talking, and every time I told them to shut up, the other teacher chaperone, Mrs. Dodds, would give me the evil eye.**

"Why would a teacher be mad at him for trying to listen?" Jason asked. No one answered.

 **Mrs. Dodds was this little math teacher from Georgia who always wore a black leather jacket, even though she was fifty years old. She looked mean enough to ride a Harley right into your locker. She had come to Yancy halfway through the year, when our last math teacher had a nervous breakdown.**

"Likely story," Annabeth muttered assuming that this was the fury that had attacked Percy.

 **From her first day, Mrs. Dodds loved Nancy Bobofit and figured I was devil spawn. She would point her crooked finger at me and say, "Now, honey," real sweet, and I knew I was going to get after-school detention for a month.**

"Ooh I hate when teachers do that," Piper said scrunching her mouth in distaste.

 **One time, after she'd made me erase answers out of old math workbooks until midnight, I told Grover I didn't think Mrs. Dodds was human. He looked at me, real serious, and said, "You're absolutely right."**

Annabeth snorted yet again.

Jason was starting to think that Mrs. Dodds might not be human and Piper began to think that Grover knew more than he let on.

' _Maybe Grover's a demigod too?'_ Piper questioned, a prediction forming in her mind.

 **Mr Brunner kept talking about Greek funeral art.**

 **Finally, Nancy Bobofit snickered something about the naked guy on the stele, and I turned around and said, "Will you shut up?"**

 **It came out louder than I meant it to.**

"That's always the way," Leo sighed.

 **The whole group laughed. Mr Brunner stopped his story.**

" **Mr Jackson," he said, "did you have a comment?"**

 **My face was totally red. I said, "No, sir."**

 **Mr Brunner pointed to one of the pictures on the stele. "Perhaps you'll tell us what this picture represents?"**

 **I looked at the carving, and felt a flush of relief, because I actually recognized it. "That's Kronos eating his kids, right?"**

"That story has always freaked me out," Piper said. "I mean I know they don't die but eating your kids? Talk about crappy parenting."

" **Yes," Mr Brunner said, obviously not satisfied. "And he did this because …"**

" **Well…" I racked my brain to remember. "Kronos was the king god, and-"**

"God?" Jason asked.

" **God?" Mr Brunner asked.**

Jason blushed.

" **Titan," I corrected myself. "And … he didn't trust his kids, who were the gods. So, um, Kronos ate them, right? But his wife hid baby Zeus, and gave Kronos a rock to eat instead.**

"Wait one second, how was your dad mistaken for a rock?" Leo laughed.

Jason thought about it for a second then answered with, "I have no idea?"

"So I guess you could say your dad is a bit of a hardhead?" Leo said trying to supress a grin.

"Aw, shut up."

 **And later, when Zeus grew up, he tricked his dad, Kronos, into barfing up his brothers and sisters-"**

" **Eeew!" said one of the girls behind me.**

"Accurate," Piper muttered.

" **-and so there was this big fight between the gods and the Titans," I continued, "and the gods won."**

 **Some snickers from the group.**

Annabeth furrowed her eyebrows. _He's not wrong, why are they laughing?_

 **Behind me, Nancy Bobofit mumbled to a friend, "Like we're going to use this in real life. Like it's going to say on our job applications, 'Please explain why Kronos ate his kids.'"**

" **And why, Mr Jackson," Brunner said, "to paraphrase Miss Bobofit's excellent question, does this matter in real life?"**

"Totally busted," Jason said.

" **Busted," Grover muttered.**

Jason's blush deepened.

" **Shut up," Nancy hissed, her face even brighter red than her hair.**

Everyone looked at Jason whose face was beginning to look incredibly similar to Nancy's.

 **At least Nancy got packed, too. Mr Brunner was the only one who ever caught her saying anything wrong. He had radar ears.**

' _Or horse ears,'_ thought the slightly insane part of Annabeth's brain. Even though Annabeth knew fully well that Chiron was only a horse from the waist down. Yet she still smiled at her thought.

 **I thought about his question, and shrugged. "I don't know, sir."**

"Nice Jackson," Annabeth said as her smile grew.

" **I see." Mr Brunner looked disappointed. "Well, half credit, Mr Jackson. Zeus did indeed feed Kronos a mixture of mustard and wine, which made him disgorge his other five children, who, of course, being immortal gods, had been living and growing up completely undigested in the Titan's stomach. The gods defeated their father, sliced him to pieces with his own scythe, and scattered his remains in Tartarus, the darkest part of the Underworld. On that happy note, it's time for lunch. Mrs. Dodds, would you lead us back outside?"**

 **The class drifted off, the girls holding their stomachs, the guys pushing each other around and acting like doofuses.**

 **Grover and I were about to follow when Mr Brunner said, "Mr Jackson."**

 **I knew that was coming.**

"More Illuminati!" Leo half-whispered to Piper who was shaking her head and smiling.

 **I told Grover to keep going. Then I turned toward Mr Brunner. "Sir?"**

 **Mr Brunner had this look that wouldn't let you go- intense brown eyes that could've been a thousand years old and had seen everything.**

Annabeth gave herself a mental note to ask Chiron his actual age when they were done.

" **You must learn the answer to my question," Mr Brunner told me.**

" **About the Titans?"**

" **About real life. And how your studies apply to it."**

" **Oh."**

" **What you learn from me," he said, "is vitally important. I expect you to treat it as such. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson."**

"That's pretty intense for high school Latin," Piper said raising an eyebrow.

 **I wanted to get angry, this guy pushed me so hard.**

 **I mean, sure, it was kind of cool on tournament days, when he dressed up in a suit of Roman armour and shouted: "What ho!'" and challenged us, sword-point against chalk, to run to the board and name every Greek and Roman person who had ever lived, and their mother, and what god they worshipped.**

"Intense," Piper repeated.

 **But Mr Brunner expected me to be as good as everybody else, despite the fact that I have dyslexia and attention deficit disorder and I had never made above a C- in my life.**

Leo knew the feeling.

 **No-he didn't expect me to be as good; he expected me to be better. And I just couldn't learn all those names and facts, much less spell them correctly.**

 **I mumbled something about trying harder, while Mr Brunner took one long sad look at the stele, like he'd been at this girl's funeral.**

"Could've been," Annabeth muttered to herself.

 **He told me to go outside and eat my lunch.**

 **The class gathered on the front steps of the museum, where we could watch the foot traffic along Fifth Avenue.**

 **Overhead, a huge storm was brewing, with clouds blacker than I'd ever seen over the city. I figured maybe it was global warming or something, because the weather all across New York State had been weird since Christmas. We'd had massive snow storms, flooding, and wildfires from lightning strikes. I wouldn't have been surprised if this was a hurricane blowing in.**

"Well, someone seems pissed," Leo observed. "Know what's got your dad's toga in twist?"

"No idea," Jason said blatantly.

 **Nobody else seemed to notice. Some of the guys were pelting pigeons with Lunchables crackers. Nancy Bobofit was trying to pickpocket something from a lady's purse, and, of course, Mrs. Dodds wasn't seeing a thing.**

' _Of course,'_ Annabeth thought.

 **Grover and I sat on the edge of the fountain, away from the others. We thought that maybe if we did that, everybody wouldn't know we were from that school-the school for loser freaks who couldn't make it elsewhere.**

Piper and Leo gave empathetic looks, they knew that feeling.

" **Detention?" Grover asked.**

" **Nah," I said. "Not from Brunner. I just wish he'd lay off me sometimes. I mean-I'm not a genius."**

 **Grover didn't say anything for a while. Then, when I thought he was going to give me some deep philosophical comment to make me feel better, he said, "Can I have your apple?"**

Annabeth gave a small laugh. _Classic Grover._

 **I didn't have much of an appetite, so I let him take it.**

 **I watched the stream of cabs going down Fifth Avenue, and thought about my mom's apartment, only a little ways uptown from where we sat. I hadn't seen her since Christmas. I wanted so bad to jump in a taxi and head home. She'd hug me and be glad to see me, but she'd be disappointed, too. She'd send me right back to Yancy, remind me that I had to try harder, even if this was my sixth school in six years and I was probably going to be kicked out again. I wouldn't be able to stand that sad look she'd give me.**

"Aww, that's so sweet," Piper cooed.

"He's the biggest Mama's boy," Annabeth chimed in. "Not that you can blame him, Sally is positively wonderful."

 **Mr Brunner parked his wheelchair at the base of the handicapped ramp. He ate celery while he read a paperback novel. A red umbrella stuck up from the back of his chair, making it look like a motorized cafe table.**

' _A motorised table?'_ Leo thought. ' _A talking table would be better.'_

 **I was about to unwrap my sandwich when Nancy Bobofit appeared in front of me with her ugly friends -I guess she'd gotten tired of stealing from the tourists- and dumped her half-eaten lunch in Grover's lap.**

Jason gave a look of disgust to the book.

" **Oops." She grinned at me with her crooked teeth. Her freckles were orange, as if somebody had spray-painted her face with liquid Cheetos.**

"Liquid Cheetos?" Piper questioned. "This kid sure is descriptive."

 **I tried to stay cool. The school counsellor had told me a million times, "Count to ten, get control of your temper." But I was so mad my mind went blank. A wave roared in my ears.**

 **I don't remember touching her, but the next thing I knew, Nancy was sitting on her butt in the fountain, screaming, "Percy pushed me!"**

 **Mrs. Dodds materialized next to us.**

' _Not a good sign,'_ Jason thought.

 **Some of the kids were whispering: "Did you see-"**

" **-the water-"**

" **-like it grabbed her-"**

"Wouldn't the Mist stop them from seeing that?" Piper asked.

"It'll probably alter their memories to make them believe she was just pushed, it just might take a while," Annabeth responded.

 **I didn't know what they were talking about. All I knew was that I was in trouble again.**

 **As soon as Mrs. Dodds was sure poor little Nancy was okay, promising to get her a new shirt at the museum gift shop, etc., etc., Mrs. Dodds turned on me. There was a triumphant fire in her eyes, as if I'd done something she'd been waiting for all semester. "Now, honey-"**

" **I know," I grumbled. "A month erasing workbooks."**

"Ooh, rookie mistake," Leo chastised.

 **That wasn't the right thing to say.**

' _Obviously,'_ thought Leo.

" **Come with me," Mrs. Dodds said.**

" **Wait!" Grover yelped. "It was me. I pushed her."**

"Good luck convincing her," Jason muttered.

 **I stared at him, stunned. I couldn't believe he was trying to cover for me. Mrs. Dodds scared Grover to death.**

 **She glared at him so hard his whiskery chin trembled.**

Annabeth smiled sadly at Grover's efforts.

" **I don't think so, Mr Underwood," she said.**

" **But-"**

" **You-will-stay-here."**

 **Grover looked at me desperately.**

' _That's it she's 110% a monster,'_ Piper concluded. ' _Grover wouldn't be that worried otherwise.'_

" **It's okay, man," I told him. "Thanks for trying."**

" **Honey," Mrs. Dodds barked at me. "Now."**

 **Nancy Bobofit smirked.**

 **I gave her my deluxe I'll-kill-you-later stare.**

Annabeth remembered fondly a time when she had given Percy the same stare.

 **Then I turned to face Mrs. Dodds, but she wasn't there. She was standing at the museum entrance, way at the top of the steps, gesturing impatiently at me to come on.**

 **How'd she get there so fast?**

' _Because she's not human,'_ Jason answered silently.

 **I have moments like that a lot, when my brain falls asleep or something, and the next thing I know I've missed something, as if a puzzle piece fell out of the universe and left me staring at the blank place behind it. The school counsellor told me this was part of the ADHD, my brain misinterpreting things.**

"I don't think so," Leo said.

 **I wasn't so sure.**

 **I went after Mrs. Dodds.**

 **Halfway up the steps, I glanced back at Grover. He was looking pale, cutting his eyes between me and Mr Brunner, like he wanted Mr Brunner to notice what was going on, but Mr Brunner was absorbed in his novel.**

"Nice one Chiron," Annabeth murmured under her breath.

 **I looked back up. Mrs. Dodds had disappeared again. She was now inside the building, at the end of the entrance hall.**

"That's not a good sign," Piper said worriedly.

 **Okay, I thought. She's going to make me buy a new shirt for Nancy at the gift shop.**

"I seriously doubt it," Jason stated looking slightly paler than usual.

 **But apparently that wasn't the plan.**

 **I followed her deeper into the museum. When I finally caught up to her, we were back in the Greek and Roman section.**

' _How ironic,'_ Annabeth thought.

 **Except for us, the gallery was empty.**

"Definitely not a good sign," Piper repeated drawing her hand close to her mouth.

 **Mrs. Dodds stood with her arms crossed in front of a big marble frieze of the Greek gods. She was making this weird noise in her throat, like growling.**

"She's 100% trying to kill him, isn't she?" Leo asked.

"Pretty much yeah," Annabeth replied.

 **Even without the noise, I would've been nervous. It's weird being alone with a teacher, especially Mrs. Dodds. Something about the way she looked at the frieze, as if she wanted to pulverize it…**

" **You've been giving us problems, honey," she said.**

 **I did the safe thing.**

"Well that's a first," Annabeth said unaware of the building tension in the room due her three companions. Piper, Jason and Leo all seemed to be completely captivated in the story and felt genuine worry for Percy.

 **I said, "Yes, ma'am."**

 **She tugged on the cuffs of her leather jacket. "Did you really think you would get away with it?"**

They all asked the silent question, " _Get away with what?"_

 **The look in her eyes was beyond mad. It was evil.**

 **She's a teacher, I thought nervously. It's not like she's going to hurt me.**

"You're wrong there buddy," Jason said anxiously.

 **I said, "I'll-I'll try harder, ma'am."**

 **Thunder shook the building.**

" **We are not fools, Percy Jackson," Mrs. Dodds said. "It was only a matter of time before we found you out. Confess, and you will suffer less pain."**

"What is she talking about?" Piper asked Annabeth. Annabeth put a finger over her lips and smiled.

 **I didn't know what she was talking about.**

 **All I could think of was that the teachers must've found the illegal stash of candy I'd been selling out of my dorm room. Or maybe they'd realized I got my essay on Tom Sawyer from the Internet without ever reading the book and now they were going to take away my grade. Or worse, they were going to make me read the book.**

Even Leo was anticipating the fight too much to fully appreciate the comedy of Percy's perspective.

" **Well?" she demanded.**

" **Ma'am, I don't…"**

" **Your time is up," she hissed.**

 **Then the weirdest thing happened. Her eyes began to glow like barbecue coals. Her fingers stretched, turning into talons. Her jacket melted into large, leathery wings. She wasn't human. She was a shrivelled hag with bat wings and claws and a mouth full of yellow fangs, and she was about to slice me to ribbons.**

"What is she?" Jason asked, mostly to himself. It nagged on the back of his brain as if he should know what monster Percy was facing.

Annabeth answered, "You'll see."

 **Then things got even stranger.**

' _How?'_ Leo thought.

 **Mr Brunner, who'd been out in front of the museum a minute before, wheeled his chair into the doorway of the gallery, holding a pen in his hand.**

' _Who is Mr. Brunner, really?'_ Piper asked.

" **What ho, Percy!" he shouted, and tossed the pen through the air.**

"What good is a pen going to do?" Jason exclaimed.

Annabeth was barely able to stifle her laughter.

 **Mrs. Dodds lunged at me.**

 **With a yelp, I dodged and felt talons slash the air next to my ear. I snatched the ballpoint pen out of the air, but when it hit my hand, it wasn't a pen anymore. It was a sword-Mr Brunner's bronze sword, which he always used on tournament day.**

"It's similar Jason's coin then?" Leo inquired.

"Quite similar," Annabeth agreed.

 **Mrs. Dodds spun toward me with a murderous look in her eyes.**

 **My knees were jelly. My hands were shaking so bad I almost dropped the sword.**

Jason wondered how Percy was ever going to get out of this, he'd had no training.

 **She snarled, "Die, honey!"**

' _Honey, really?"_ Leo chastised.

 **And she flew straight at me.**

 **Absolute terror ran through my body. I did the only thing that came naturally: I swung the sword.**

"Naturally?!" Jason just about yelped. Even Piper and Leo looked surprised.

 **The metal blade hit her shoulder and passed clean through her body as if she were made of water. Hisss!**

"And he took her down in one strike?!" Jason exclaimed. He had had years of sword practice before he fought his first real monster and that had taken a lot longer to kill than what this twelve year old had just done.

 **Mrs. Dodds was a sand castle in a power fan. She exploded into yellow powder, vaporized on the spot, leaving nothing but the smell of sulphur and a dying screech and a chill of evil in the air, as if those two glowing red eyes were still watching me.**

Piper felt a chill in her spine and shivered.

 **I was alone.**

 **There was a ballpoint pen in my hand.**

 **Mr Brunner wasn't there. Nobody was there but me.**

Piper's look was incredulous before her face lost all traces emotion as she asked, "The Mist?"

Annabeth nodded.

"That would suck," Leo stated.

 **My hands were still trembling. My lunch must've been contaminated with magic mushrooms or something.**

 **Had I imagined the whole thing?**

Jason knew exactly what he was going through.

 **I went back outside.**

 **It had started to rain.**

 **Grover was sitting by the fountain, a museum map tented over his head. Nancy Bobofit was still standing there, soaked from her swim in the fountain, grumbling to her ugly friends. When she saw me, she said, "I hope Mrs. Kerr whipped your butt."**

"Miss Kerr?" Leo said uncertainly.

 **I said, "Who?"**

" **Our teacher. Duh!"**

"He's going to think he's going mental," Leo stated.

Annabeth nodded sadly, ' _but it needed to be done.'_

 **I blinked. We had no teacher named Mrs. Kerr. I asked Nancy what she was talking about.**

 **She just rolled her eyes and turned away.**

 **I asked Grover where Mrs. Dodds was.**

"Ooh this will be interesting," Annabeth said mischievously.

 **He said, "Who?"**

 **But he paused first, and he wouldn't look at me, so I thought he was messing with me.**

"Nice one Grover," Leo said. Annabeth just shook her head, Grover could not lie.

" **Not funny, man," I told him. "This is serious."**

 **Thunder boomed overhead.**

 **I saw Mr Brunner sitting under his red umbrella, reading his book, as if he'd never moved.**

' _Chiron can lie though,'_ Annabeth thought.

 **I went over to him.**

 **He looked up, a little distracted. "Ah, that would be my pen. Please bring your own writing utensil in the future, Mr Jackson."**

 **I handed Mr Brunner his pen. I hadn't even realized I was still holding it.**

" **Sir," I said, "where's Mrs. Dodds?"**

 **He stared at me blankly. "Who?"**

" **The other chaperone. Mrs. Dodds. The pre-algebra teacher."**

 **He frowned and sat forward, looking mildly concerned. "Percy, there is no Mrs. Dodds on this trip. As far as I know, there has never been a Mrs. Dodds at Yancy Academy. Are you feeling all right?"**

"And that's the end of the chapter," Jason said. "Who's reading next?"

"I will," Piper volunteered and took the book from Jason. "But first I have some questions. What is Grover? Is he a demigod? Also who is Mr. Brunner? And what did Percy just kill?" Piper said all of this without taking a breath.

Annabeth shuffled in her seat. "Apollo said no spoilers," she replied sheepishly.

Piper huffed but opened the book to Chapter 2 where she gave off a soft laugh at the chapter title.

 **Chapter 2. THREE OLD LADIES KNIT THE SOCKS OF DEATH**

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Hey guys I hope you enjoy this chapter it was fun to make.**

 **All reviews are much appreciated and encouraged.**

 **Lots of Love,**

 **Wisdomsqueen**


	3. Death Socks

**A/N**

 **To everyone who has reviewed, I love you!**

 **Disclaimer- I own nothing in bold (expect A/Ns)**

* * *

Piper huffed but opened the book to Chapter 2 where she gave off a soft laugh at the chapter title.

 **2\. Three Old Ladies Knit the Socks of Death**

"Well, this kid has quite an knack for good chapter titles," Jason said smiling.

Meanwhile Annabeth's brain was whirling, ' _he couldn't mean_..' but she quickly dismissed the thought.

 **I was used to the occasional weird experience, but usually they were over quickly. This twenty-four/seven hallucination was more than I could handle. For the rest of the school year, the entire campus seemed to be playing some kind of trick on me. The students acted as if they were completely and totally convinced that Mrs Kerr – a perky blonde woman whom I'd never seen in my life until she got on our bus at the end of the field trip – had been our maths teacher since Christmas.**

"That would suck," Leo remarked as he ran a hand through the tangles of his curly hair.

Piper nodded in agreement before continuing.

 **Every so often I would spring a Mrs Dodds reference on somebody, just to see if I could trip them up, but they would stare at me like I was psycho.**

Annabeth laughed under her breath, _'you are a psycho, Perce.'_

 **It got so I almost believed them – Mrs Dodds had never existed.**

"Wait, almost?" Jason questioned.

"What's the bet it's Grover?" Leo muttered to Piper, with which she replied to with a perfectly executed eye roll.

"You're on."

 **Almost.**

Leo was almost jumping in his seat with anticipation.

 **But Grover couldn't fool me.**

Leo happily jumped out of his seat with an enthusiastic, "YES!" Piper just sighed and chucked a coin into Leo's outstretched hands.

 **When I mentioned the name Dodds to him, he would hesitate, then claim she didn't exist.**

"Nice one Grover," Annabeth murmured to herself.

 **But I knew he was lying.**

 **Something was going on. Something had happened at the museum.**

 **I didn't have much time to think about it during the days, but at night, visions of Mrs Dodds with talons and leathery wings would wake me up in a cold sweat.**

' _I don't blame you_ ,' Jason thought. He was rarely allowed out of camp at 12 let alone left to fend off monsters by himself, and _he'd_ had training.

 **The freak weather continued, which didn't help my mood. One night, a thunderstorm blew out the windows in my dorm room. A few days later, the biggest tornado ever spotted in the Hudson Valley touched down only fifty miles from Yancy Academy. One of the current events we studied in social studies class was the unusual number of small planes that had gone down in sudden squalls in the Atlantic that year.**

"Jeez, Jason why's dear old dad being so touchy?" Leo asked. "First the storm brewing at the museum now all of this?"

Jason simply shrugged.

A thought struck Piper as she listened to Leo, ' _wasn't the book called the lightning thief? Zeus could have something to do with that.'_

 **I started feeling cranky and irritable most of the time. My grades slipped from Ds to Fs. I got into more fights with Nancy Bobofit and her friends. I was sent out into the hallway in almost every class.**

Leo looked at his hands, he knew what was about to happen. The dreaded call to principal's office where they tell you aren't a good 'fit' for the school anymore.

 **Finally, when our English teacher, Mr Nicoll, asked me for the millionth time why I was too lazy to study for spelling tests, I snapped. I called him an old sot. I wasn't even sure what it meant, but it sounded good.**

Before Piper had even opened her mouth to ask Jason and Annabeth simultaneously recited, "It means a drunkard."

Piper was about to continue reading when she heard the tinniest of whispers say, "Illuminati." By none other than Leo.

 **The headmaster sent my mom a letter the following week, making it official: I would not be invited back next year to Yancy Academy.**

It was just as Leo had expected.

 **Fine, I told myself. Just fine.**

 **I was homesick.**

 **I wanted to be with my mom in our little apartment on the Upper East Side, even if I had to go to public school and put up with my obnoxious stepfather and his stupid poker parties.**

 **And yet… there were things I'd miss at Yancy. The view of the woods out my dorm window, the Hudson River in the distance, the smell of pine trees. I'd miss Grover, who'd been a good friend, even if he was a little strange.**

Annabeth let herself give a small quiver of a smile at Percy's comments. She missed Grover almost as much as she missed Percy, but really she just missed the three of them together.

 **I worried how he'd survive next year without me.**

Piper's eyes went soft and she thought, ' _that is so cute."_

 **I'd miss Latin class, too – Mr Brunner's crazy tournament days and his faith that I could do well.**

 **As exam week got closer, Latin was the only test I studied for. I hadn't forgotten what Mr Brunner had told me about this subject being life-and-death for me. I wasn't sure why, but I'd started to believe him.**

"Well that's good," Jason thought aloud.

 **The evening before my final, I got so frustrated I threw the Cambridge Guide to Greek Mythology across my dorm room. Words had started swimming off the page, circling my head, the letters doing one-eighties as if they were riding skateboards.**

"The perks of dyslexia," Annabeth muttered sarcastically.

"Wait," Leo added in surprise, "Do you have dyslexia?"

Annabeth nodded, her cheeks gaining a pink tinge.

Leo's mouth was agape as he let it sink in, the child of wisdom, who loved to read had a learning disorder.

Piper and Jason were similarly surprised but tried to hide the fact from Annabeth as it was clearly a touchy subject. Once everyone had slowly absorbed the fact that Annabeth had dyslexia Piper began to read again.

 **There was no way I was going to remember the difference between Chiron and Charon, or Polydictes and Polydeuces. And conjugating those Latin verbs? Forget it.**

Jason was about spout some pointers about Latin but quickly realised that no one here would appreciate them.

 **I paced the room, feeling like ants were crawling around inside my shirt.**

 **I remembered Mr Brunner's serious expression, his thousand-year-old eyes. I will accept only the best from you, Percy Jackson.**

' _Who is Mr. Brunner?'_ Piper asked herself, the thought nagging at her brain. ' _He sounded so familiar…'_

 **I took a deep breath. I picked up the mythology book.**

 **I'd never asked a teacher for help before. Maybe if I talked to Mr Brunner, he could give me some pointers. At least I could apologize for the big fat 'F' I was about to score on his exam. I didn't want to leave Yancy Academy with him thinking I hadn't tried.**

"That's so sweet," Piper muttered. It was cute that he cared that much about his teacher's opinion.

 **I walked downstairs to the faculty offices. Most of them were dark and empty, but Mr Brunner's door was ajar, light from his window stretching across the hallway floor.**

 **I was three steps from the door handle when I heard voices inside the office. Mr Brunner asked a question. A voice that was definitely Grover's said, '… worried about Percy, sir.'**

 **I froze.**

Leo leaned in closer to Piper as if he too was strained to hear Grover and Mr. Brunner's conversation.

 **I'm not usually an eavesdropper, but I dare you to try not listening if you hear your best friend talking about you to an adult.**

"That's fair enough," Jason agreed.

 **I inched closer.**

 **'… alone this summer,' Grover was saying. 'I mean, a Kindly One in the school!**

Suddenly Jason sat bolt upright in his chair so quickly that it almost toppled over, as everything suddenly made sense; the leathery wings, the talons. He turned to Annabeth. "It was a fury!" he exclaimed.

"He without any training or idea of what he was doing, faced a _fury_ and killed it in a single strike!"

Realisation dawned on Piper's face as Annabeth smiled and nodded. Jason looked at the book with a mixture of disbelief and awe.

 **Now that we know for sure, and they know too –'**

 **'We would only make matters worse by rushing him,' Mr Brunner said. 'We need the boy to mature more.'**

 **'But he may not have time. The summer solstice deadline –'**

 **'Will have to be resolved without him, Grover. Let him enjoy his ignorance while he still can.'**

 **'Sir, he saw her…'**

 **'His imagination,' Mr Brunner insisted. 'The Mist over the students and staff will be enough to convince him of that.'**

 **'Sir, I… I can't fail in my duties again.' Grover's voice was choked with emotion. 'You know what that would mean.'**

Annabeth shook her head, ' _Grover had never failed it was a Thalia's sacrifice.'_

 **'You haven't failed, Grover,' Mr Brunner said kindly. 'I should have seen her for what she was. Now let's just worry about keeping Percy alive until next autumn –'**

 **The mythology book dropped out of my hand and hit the floor with a thud.**

Leo winced, ' _get out of there,'_ he urged silently.

 **Mr Brunner went silent.**

 **My heart hammering, I picked up the book and backed down the hall.**

 **A shadow slid across the lighted glass of Brunner's office door, the shadow of something much taller than my wheelchair-bound teacher, holding something that looked suspiciously like an archer's bow.**

Annabeth fought the urge to face palm, ' _out of his chair in open, is he insane?'_

That's when Piper had a realisation, ' _could Mr. Brunner be Chiron_?'

 **I opened the nearest door and slipped inside.**

 **A few seconds later I heard a slow clop-clop-clop, like muffled wood blocks, then a sound like an animal snuffling right outside my door. A large dark shape paused in front of the glass, then moved on.**

Piper looked to Annabeth for conformation as she mouthed, 'Chrion?' to the blonde. Annabeth smiled and nodded.

 **A bead of sweat trickled down my neck.**

 **Somewhere in the hallway, Mr Brunner spoke. 'Nothing,' he murmured. 'My nerves haven't been right since the winter solstice.'**

' _What happened at the Winter solstice?'_ Jason asked silently.

 **'Mine neither,' Grover said. 'But I could have sworn…'**

 **'Go back to the dorm,' Mr Brunner told him. 'You've got a long day of exams tomorrow.'**

 **'Don't remind me.'**

 **The lights went out in Mr Brunner's office.**

 **I waited in the dark for what seemed like forever.**

"So probably 10 seconds," Leo said attempting to ease the tense atmosphere.

 **Finally, I slipped out into the hallway and made my way back up to the dorm.**

 **Grover was lying on his bed, studying his Latin exam notes like he'd been there all night.**

 **'Hey,' he said, bleary-eyed. 'You going to be ready for this test?'**

 **I didn't answer.**

 **'You look awful.' He frowned. 'Is everything okay?'**

 **'Just… tired.'**

 **I turned so he couldn't read my expression, and started getting ready for bed.**

"But Grover would know," Annabeth said under her breath, thinking about how satyrs could read emotions.

Piper caught her statement and became even more confused to what Grover was. ' _How would Grover know what Percy is feeling?'_

 **I didn't understand what I'd heard downstairs. I wanted to believe I'd imagined the whole thing.**

 **But one thing was clear: Grover and Mr Brunner were talking about me behind my back. They thought I was in some kind of danger.**

"I agree," Jason exclaimed, still slightly shaken up from the Fury revelation.

 **The next afternoon, as I was leaving the three-hour Latin exam,**

"Three hours?" Leo said with distaste. "They're in 6th grade."

 **my eyes swimming with all the Greek and Roman names I'd misspelled, Mr Brunner called me back inside.**

 **For a moment, I was worried he'd found out about my eavesdropping the night before, but that didn't seem to be the problem.**

 **'Percy,' he said. 'Don't be discouraged about leaving Yancy. It's… it's for the best.'**

Piper winced. "That's harsh."

 **His tone was kind, but the words still embarrassed me. Even though he was speaking quietly, the other kids finishing the test could hear. Nancy Bobofit smirked at me and made sarcastic little kissing motions with her lips.**

"Wait," Piper exclaimed. "What if Nancy Bobofit had a crush on Percy?"

Annabeth contemplated the idea, bringing to mind how she had originally treated Percy. "It's possible," she concluded.

 **I mumbled, 'Okay, sir.'**

 **'I mean…' Mr Brunner wheeled his chair back and forth, like he wasn't sure what to say. 'This isn't the right place for you. It was only a matter of time.'**

"This is not going well," Leo commented.

 **My eyes stung.**

 **Here was my favourite teacher, in front of the class, telling me I couldn't handle it. After saying he believed in me all year, now he was telling me I was destined to get kicked out.**

"And when you put it that way it's even worse," Jason agreed with Leo.

 **'Right,' I said, trembling.**

 **'No, no,' Mr Brunner said. 'Oh, confound it all. What I'm trying to say… you're not normal, Percy. That's nothing to be –'**

 **'Thanks,' I blurted. 'Thanks a lot, sir, for reminding me.'**

 **'Percy –'**

 **But I was already gone.**

"That was unnecessarily harsh," Piper stated. ' _Even if Chiron was implying what I think he was.'_

 **On the last day of the term, I shoved my clothes into my suitcase.**

 **The other guys were joking around, talking about their vacation plans. One of them was going on a hiking trip to Switzerland. Another was cruising the Caribbean for a month. They were juvenile delinquents, like me, but they were rich juvenile delinquents. Their daddies were executives, or ambassadors, or celebrities.**

Leo looked at Piper who was shifting uncomfortably in her seat.

 **I was a nobody, from a family of nobodies.**

"I wouldn't say that," Jason said noticing his girlfriends discomfort.

 **They asked me what I'd be doing this summer and I told them I was going back to the city.**

 **What I didn't tell them was that I'd have to get a summer job walking dogs or selling magazine subscriptions, and spend my free time worrying about where I'd go to school in the autumn.**

Annabeth's lips curled into a sad, nostalgic sort of smile as she thought of how Percy had actually spent the Summer with her.

 **'Oh,' one of the guys said. 'That's cool.'**

 **They went back to their conversation as if I'd never existed.**

 **The only person I dreaded saying goodbye to was Grover but, as it turned out, I didn't have to. He'd booked a ticket to Manhattan on the same Greyhound as I had, so there we were, together again, heading into the city.**

"Wow, what an unlikely coincidence," Leo said, voice dripping in sarcasm.

 **During the whole bus ride, Grover kept glancing nervously down the aisle, watching the other passengers. It occurred to me that he'd always acted nervous and fidgety when we left Yancy, as if he expected something bad to happen. Before, I'd always assumed he was worried about getting teased. But there was nobody to tease him on the Greyhound.**

 **Finally I couldn't stand it any more.**

 **I said, 'Looking for Kindly Ones?'**

Annabeth burst out laughing, knowing how that comment would've given Grover a heart attack.

"Oh my gods I would've died, if I were Grover," Jason confessed, ignoring Annabeth's laughter.

 **Grover nearly jumped out of his seat. 'Wha – what do you mean?'**

 **I confessed about eavesdropping on him and Mr Brunner the night before the exam.**

 **Grover's eye twitched. 'How much did you hear?'**

"Everything," Piper said emotionlessly.

 **'Oh… not much. What's the summer-solstice deadline?'**

"Oh, not much just everything," Leo said, rolling his eyes.

 **He winced. 'Look, Percy… I was just worried for you, see? I mean, hallucinating about demon maths teachers…'**

"That was not a good save," Jason cringed, feeling a twinge of sympathy for Grover.

 **'Grover –'**

 **'And I was telling Mr Brunner that maybe you were overstressed or something, because there was no such person as Mrs Dodds, and…'**

 **'Grover, you're a really, really bad liar.'**

"I agree," added Leo enthusiastically.

 **His ears turned pink.**

 **From his shirt pocket, he fished out a grubby business card. 'Just take this, okay? In case you need me this summer.'**

 **The card was in fancy script, which was murder on my dyslexic eyes,**

Annabeth sighed, she'd argued to have the cards changed ages ago. Didn't Mr. D understand that most demigods were dyslexic?

 **but I finally made out something like:**

 **Grover Underwood, Keeper**

 **Half-Blood Hill**

 **Long Island, New York**

 **(800)009-0009**

"Keeper?" Piper questioned. "Wasn't Coach Hedge a keeper?"

"Does that mean that Grover's a satyr?" Jason asked mostly to Annabeth, who in turned nodded.

' _Well the reading emotions makes sense now,'_ Piper thought.

 **'What's Half –'**

 **'Don't say it aloud!' he yelped. 'That's my, um… summer address.'**

 **My heart sank. Grover had a summer home. I'd never considered that his family might be as rich as the others at Yancy.**

 **'Okay,' I said glumly. 'So, like, if I want to come visit your mansion.'**

 **He nodded. 'Or… or if you need me.'**

 **'Why would I need you?'**

"Ooh," Leo recoiled. "That was harsh."

 **It came out harsher than I meant it too.**

"Good," Annabeth muttered feeling sympathy for Grover.

 **Grover blushed right down to his Adam's apple. 'Look, Percy, the truth is, I – I kind of have to protect you.'**

 **I stared at him.**

 **All year long, I'd gotten in fights keeping bullies away from him. I'd lost sleep worrying that he'd get beaten up next year without me.**

This pulled on Annabeth's heartstrings, she'd missed Percy's complete loyalty and great friendship.

 **And here he was acting like he was the one who defended me.**

"That's fair, Grover hasn't really chucked a Coach Hedge yet," Leo defended, remembering how Coach Hedge had climbed down the Grand Canyon to rescue him.

 **'Grover,' I said, 'what exactly are you protecting me from?'**

' _That's a really good question_ ,' Jason thought.

 **There was a huge grinding noise under our feet. Black smoke poured from the dashboard and the whole bus filled with a smell like rotten eggs.**

Jason crinkled his nose in disgust.

 **The driver cursed and limped the Greyhound over to the side of the highway.**

 **After a few minutes clanking around in the engine compartment, the driver announced that we'd all have to get off. Grover and I filed outside with everybody else.**

 **We were on a stretch of country road – no place you'd notice if you didn't break down there. On our side of the highway was nothing but maple trees and litter from passing cars. On the other side, across four lanes of asphalt shimmering with afternoon heat, was an old-fashioned fruit stand.**

 **The stuff on sale looked really good: heaping boxes of blood-red cherries and apples, walnuts and apricots, jugs of cider in a claw-foot tub full of ice. There were no customers, just three old ladies sitting in rocking chairs in the shade of a maple tree, knitting the biggest pair of socks I'd ever seen.**

"They couldn't be…" Annabeth muttered under her breath, suddenly pale at the thought.

In noticing Annabeth's concern Piper began to feel her heart beat faster anticipating a monster of sorts.

 **I mean these socks were the size of sweaters, but they were clearly socks. The lady on the right knitted one of them. The lady on the left knitted the other. The lady in the middle held an enormous basket of electric-blue yarn.**

The mood had changed dramatically within the group with a tension now hanging in the air. Leo didn't seem to notice.

"Electric blue? They'll match your eyes Superman," Leo winked at Jason. But Jason's head was reeling as he searched his brain for a connection to the three ladies.

 **All three women looked ancient, with pale faces wrinkled like fruit leather, silver hair tied back in white bandannas, bony arms sticking out of bleached cotton dresses.**

 **The weirdest thing was, they seemed to be looking right at me.**

Annabeth caught her breath. "He would've told me," she said in a voice below a whisper. Leo began to notice the serious mood in the cabin and listened intently to the story in case he had missed something.

 **I looked over at Grover to say something about this and saw that the blood had drained from his face. His nose was twitching.**

Annabeth had begun to look similar as she reasoned with herself, ' _this was over five years ago, I know he's alive,'_ but that was just it. Annabeth didn't know if he was alive, for all she knew he was dead. She pushed those pessimistic thoughts away and tried to think logically. There had to be a reason to why Percy would keep this from her. Then a question sprung into her mind, why else could someone see the Fates?

 **'Grover?' I said. 'Hey, man –'**

 **'Tell me they're not looking at you. They are. Aren't they?'**

 **'Yeah. Weird, huh? You think those socks would fit me?'**

"Not the time," Jason muttered.

 **'Not funny, Percy. Not funny at all.'**

 **The old lady in the middle took out a huge pair of scissors – gold and silver, long-bladed, like shears.**

Jason and Piper gasped at the same time. Piper threw a hand to her mouth as realisation dawned visibly on her face. Jason also held his mouth agape understanding that these three ladies were more dangerous than any monster he had ever faced.

When Leo looked to Annabeth for an explanation he saw her with her eyebrows furrowed with a look of deep concentration, which only helped to baffle Leo further.

 **I heard Grover catch his breath.**

 **'We're getting on the bus,' he told me. 'Come on.'**

 **'What?' I said. 'It's a thousand degrees in there.'**

Jason had his hand in his mouth gnawing on his knuckle in worry. ' _Do it_ ,' he silently urged.

 **'Come on!' He prised open the door and climbed inside, but I stayed back.**

 **Across the road, the old ladies were still watching me. The middle one cut the yarn,**

Piper's voice cracked and everyone looked to Annabeth in shock, wondering how in the name of Zeus was this kid still alive. They all waited expectantly for Annabeth to explain, but still she didn't move out of her trance.

Piper was about to awkwardly continue reading when Annabeth suddenly smiled very, very wide and looked up at the three demigods staring at her. "What?" she asked them.

"Why are you smiling, your boyfriends life cord has just been cut?" Jason said bluntly but with unease clear in his voice.

Annabeth paused as though debating the what to say next, until she settled on, "Spoilers". Annabeth could hardly suppress her grin, _'It wasn't his cord.'_

Leo was still utterly lost. "Who's life cord was cut?" he asked.

"Percy's, apparently," Piper answered, throwing looks of suspicion towards her female companion.

Annabeth continued to looked exceptionally pleased on the outside but inside her mind was still calculating Leo's question, _'who's cord was it?'_ Even as she asked herself one face in particular kept popping into her head, but she almost didn't want to believe that.

 **and I swear I could hear that snip across four lanes of traffic. Her two friends balled up the electric-blue socks, leaving me wondering who they could possibly be for – Sasquatch or Godzilla.**

"Since the cord was so long, that means that the person would die in the future, not immediately?" Piper asked uncertainly.

Annabeth shrugged, knowing that who she suspected to own the life cord had perished just over a year ago.

 **At the rear of the bus, the driver wrenched a big chunk of smoking metal out of the engine compartment. The bus shuddered, and the engine roared back to life.**

 **The passengers cheered.**

"Wooo," Leo said sarcastically trying to lift the mood of the room.

 **'Darn right!' yelled the driver. He slapped the bus with his hat. 'Everybody back on board!'**

 **Once we got going. I started feeling feverish, as if I'd caught the flu.**

Despite how Annabeth had smiled Jason still felt himself fretting for this kid. He subconsciously creased his forehead and bit his lip in worry.

 **Grover didn't look much better. He was shivering and his teeth were chattering.**

 **'Grover?'**

 **'Yeah?'**

 **'What are you not telling me?'**

"That you're a demigod," Piper quietly deadpanned.

 **He dabbed his forehead with his shirt sleeve. 'Percy, what did you see back at the fruit stand?'**

 **'You mean the old ladies? What is it about them, man? They're not like… Mrs Dodds, are they?'**

"Much, much worse," Annabeth muttered.

 **His expression was hard to read, but I got the feeling that the fruit-stand ladies were something much, much worse than Mrs Dodds.**

Leo turned up an eyebrow at Annabeth who despite herself flushed slightly in her cheeks.

 **He said, 'Just tell me what you saw.'**

 **'The middle one took out her scissors, and she cut the yarn.'**

Despite himself Jason flinched, which did not go unnoticed by Annabeth.

 **He closed his eyes and made a gesture with his fingers that might've been crossing himself, but it wasn't. It was something else, something almost – older.**

"Percy is very perceptive," Piper said approvingly.

 **He said, 'You saw her snip the cord.'**

 **'Yeah. So?' But even as I said it, I knew it was a big deal.**

 **'This is not happening,' Grover mumbled. He started chewing at his thumb. 'I don't want this to be like the last time.'**

Annabeth brought her fingers up to the bridge of her nose and sighed as Leo asked the expected, "What happened last time?" question.

Annabeth replied by casting a zipping motion over her lips.

 **'What last time?'**

 **'Always sixth grade. They never get past sixth.'**

"We were 16," muttered Piper.

 **'Grover,' I said, because he was really starting to scare me. 'What are you talking about?'**

 **'Let me walk you home from the bus station. Promise me.'**

 _'Do it,'_ Jason silently urged.

 **This seemed like a strange request to me, but I promised he could.**

 **'Is this like a superstition or something?' I asked.**

 **No answer.**

 **'Grover – that snipping of the yarn. Does that mean somebody is going to die?'**

"Bingo," Leo said dragging on the last syllable longer than necessary.

 **He looked at me mournfully, like he was already picking the kind of flowers I'd like best on my coffin.**

"And that's the end," Piper said as she looked up at the other three demigods. "Who wants to read next?" she asked.

Leo shrugged and said, "Why not?" before catching the book Piper had just thrown at him.

"Ok, I hope this chapter title lives up to the expectation," Leo said dramatically. He prised open the slowly, arching himself away from the pages for effect.

Piper rolled her eyes.

Leo gasped as he read the title silently. "Kinky."

"Just read the god damn title Leo," Piper demanded.

"Okay, okay, jeez woman."

 **3\. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

* * *

 **A/N**

 **Please feel free to review, all comments are welcome.**

 **I hope you've enjoyed this chapter, a new one is coming your way soon.**

 **Lots of Love,**

 **Wisdomsqueen**


	4. The Loss of Pants

_**A/N**_

 _ **Disclamer- Everything in BOLD is the property of Rick Riordan**_

Leo gasped as he read the title silently. "Kinky."

"Just read the god damn title Leo," Piper demanded, exasperated.

"Okay, okay, jeez woman."

 **3\. Grover Unexpectedly Loses His Pants**

Annabeth smothered an uncharacteristic giggle whilst Jason shook his head with a smile. "I love this kid," he muttered.

 **Confession time: I ditched Grover as soon as we got to the bus terminal.**

Annabeth's easy smile warped quickly into a look of exasperation, ' _always dodging anything that could help him,'_ she thought shaking her head.

Piper's forehead crinkled at the thought of Percy ditching Grover. The information didn't sit well with her, it just felt wrong.

 **I know, I know. It was rude.**

"Good," Piper said slowly, still unsure of how to take the situation.

 **But Grover was freaking me out, looking at me like I was a dead man, muttering "Why does this always happen?"**

"Yeah, that's kinda freaky," Jason spoke up. He'd felt the sudden unexplainable urge to defend Percy.

 **and "Why does it always have to be sixth grade?"**

"But we were 16," Leo interrupted, looking up in confusion.

"You guys are special, the whole 'Hera's heroes' business kinda interferes with all normalcy," Annabeth explained. "But the normal age demigods start attracting monsters is around 11, 12."

Leo nodded, satisfied.

 **Whenever he got upset, Grover's bladder acted up, so I wasn't surprised when, as soon as we got off the bus, he made me promise to wait for him, then made a beeline for the restroom.**

Piper smiled sadly, knowing full well what was inevitably about to happen.

 **Instead of waiting, I got my suitcase, slipped outside, and caught the first taxi uptown.**

 **"East One-hundred-and-fourth and First," I told the driver.**

Leo paused the reading, looked up and opened his mouth as if to speak. But then suddenly closed it. He'd stopped to ask if Percy still lived there, but quickly realised that even if he did _he_ certainly wouldn't be there. His cheeks flushed as he quickly began reading to cover his mistake.

 **A word about my mother, before you meet her.**

Annabeth's lips turned up at the corners. ' _Sweetest person ever.'_

 **Her name is Sally Jackson and she's the best person in the world,**

Piper's eyes went soft. _'That's so cute,'_ she thought.

 **which just proves my theory that the best people have the rottenest luck. Her own parents died in a plane crash when she was five, and she was raised by an uncle who didn't care much about her. She wanted to be a novelist, so she spent high school working to save enough money for a college with a good creative-writing program. Then her uncle got cancer, and she had to quit school her senior year to take care of him. After he died, she was left with no money, no family, and no diploma.**

Piper gasped, "That's terrible."

 **The only good break she ever got was meeting my dad.**

"That's so sweet," Jason blurted out. As Piper nodded vigorously in agreement Jason's face turned a bright hue of red.

 **I don't have any memories of him, just this sort of warm glow, maybe the barest trace of his smile. My mom doesn't like to talk about him because it makes her sad. She has no pictures.**

 **See, they weren't married. She told me he was rich and important, and their relationship was a secret. Then one day, he set sail across the Atlantic on some important journey, and he never came back.**

 **Lost at sea, my mom told me. Not dead. Lost at sea.**

"That's not technically a lie, is it?" Leo asked, eyes twinkling.

"I guess not," contemplated Jason, throughly impressed.

 **She worked odd jobs, took night classes to get her high school diploma, and raised me on her own. She never complained or got mad. Not even once. But I knew I wasn't an easy kid.**

Annabeth scoffed.

 **Finally, she married Gabe Ugliano,**

"Ugh," Leo said in disgust. "That's a shocking last name."

 **who was nice the first thirty seconds we knew him, then showed his true colours as a world-class jerk. When I was young, I nicknamed him Smelly Gabe. I'm sorry, but it's the truth. The guy reeked like mouldy garlic pizza wrapped in gym shorts.**

Leo's nose crinkled whilst he read Gabe's description.

 **Between the two of us, we made my mom's life pretty hard. The way Smelly Gabe treated her, the way he and I got along . . . well, when I came home is a good example.**

' _Here we go,'_ Annabeth thought. She remembered the fierce way Percy had hated his stepfather and throughly expected a verbal fight of some sort.

 **I walked into our little apartment, hoping my mom would be home from work. Instead, Smelly Gabe was in the living room, playing poker with his buddies. The television blared ESPN. Chips and beer cans were strewn all over the carpet. Hardly looking up, he said around his cigar, "So, you're home."**

"Really? That's all he says," Piper asked, the disbelief and distaste evident in her voice.

 **"Where's my mom?"**

 **"Working," he said. "You got any cash?"**

Jason's jaw just about dropped to the floor. "You've got to be joking."

Annabeth raised an eyebrow at this comment, she'd been expecting tension but this was just plain rude.

 **That was it. No welcome back. Good to see you. How has your life been the last six months?**

"Exactly," Jason exclaimed, still slightly worked up about the cash comment.

 **Gabe had put on weight. He looked like a tusk-less walrus in thrift-store clothes. He had about three hairs on his head, all combed over his bald scalp, as if that made him handsome or something.**

"Does he remind anyone else of a fatter and badly dressed Homer Simpson?" Leo asked, "Or is that just me?"

After a few weird looks from the other three Leo nodded and turned back to the book. "Just me then."

 **He managed the Electronics Mega-Mart in Queens, but he stayed home most of the time. I don't know why he hadn't been fired long before. He just kept on collecting pay checks, spending the money on cigars that made me nauseous, and on beer, of course. Always beer. Whenever I was home, he expected me to provide his gambling funds. He called that our "guy secret." Meaning, if I told my mom, he would punch my lights out.**

"What now?!" Annabeth exclaimed, having suddenly gotten up from her chair, a look of pure shock displayed on her sharp features.

Leo nervously repeated the line.

Annabeth's eyes were hard as steel and her jaw was clenched tight, the cogs of her brain were working overtime to analyse the information she had just heard. Her fists balled up as she sat back in her chair. Pulling her knees up to her chest Annabeth nervously gnawed on her lip, because Percy had had a great childhood, a caring mother, a mother who would never have let that happen to her son. But what if Sally had been protecting him by putting him in all those boarding schools? The more and more Annabeth thought about it the more realistic it became, and the more likely the possibility of Gabe being more than an annoying step father sunk it.

Annabeth's looked as if she had been slapped, with her voice below a whisper she confessed, "He never told me."

Piper draped her arm on Annabeth's back, rubbing it soothingly.

Meanwhile Jason could feel his face heating up, the urge to defend Percy was back again, yet this time Jason could do nothing about it.

 **"I don't have any cash," I told him.**

 **He raised a greasy eyebrow.**

Annabeth was too shocked to even scowl.

 **Gabe could sniff out money like a bloodhound, which was surprising, since his own smell should've covered up everything else.**

Leo lightly snorted, looking cautiously over to Annabeth before saying, "What a little savage."

 **"You took a taxi from the bus station," he said. "Probably paid with a twenty. Got six, seven bucks in change. Somebody expects to live under this roof, he ought to carry his own weight.**

"He's twelve!" Piper exclaimed. "And he goes, I mean went to a boarding school."

 **Am I right, Eddie?"**

 **Eddie, the super of the apartment building, looked at me with a twinge of sympathy. "Come on, Gabe," he said. "The kid just got here."**

"Thank you," Jason huffed, crossing his arms.

 **"Am I right?" Gabe repeated.**

 **Eddie scowled into his bowl of pretzels. The other two guys passed gas in harmony.**

"Lovely," Leo remarked. "Real classy."

 **"Fine," I said. I dug a wad of dollars out of my pocket and threw the money on the table. "I hope you lose."**

 **"Your report card came, brain boy!" he shouted after me. "I wouldn't act so snooty!"**

"He has a learning deficiency, you pig," Annabeth exclaimed. She was still processing the fact that Gabe had possibly abused Percy, that his childhood wasn't as envious as she had once thought.

 **I slammed the door to my room, which really wasn't my room. During school months, it was Gabe's "study." He didn't study anything in there except old car magazines, but he loved shoving my stuff in the closet, leaving his muddy boots on my windowsill, and doing his best to make the place smell like his nasty cologne and cigars and stale beer.**

Piper was shaking her head and clenching her jaw, ' _this was just plain wrong_ '.

 **I dropped my suitcase on the bed. Home sweet home.**

 **Gabe's smell was almost worse than the nightmares about Mrs. Dodds, or the sound of that old fruit lady's shears snipping the yarn.**

"Jeez, that's bad," Leo said.

 **But as soon as I thought that, my legs felt weak. I remembered Grover's look of panic—how he'd made me promise I wouldn't go home without him. A sudden chill rolled through me. I felt like someone—something—was looking for me right now, maybe pounding its way up the stairs, growing long, horrible talons.**

Everyone subconsciously held their breath anticipating the monster that was sure to come.

 **Then I heard my mom's voice. "Percy?"**

Jason audibly sighed in relief, prompting a smile to form on his girlfriend's lips.

 **She opened the bedroom door, and my fears melted.**

Piper resisted the urge to say yet again, ' _that's so cute!_ '

 **My mother can make me feel good just by walking into the room. Her eyes sparkle and change colour in the light. Her smile is as warm as a quilt. She's got a few grey streaks mixed in with her long brown hair, but I never think of her as old. When she looks at me, it's like she's seeing all the good things about me, none of the bad.**

' _Just like my mother_ ', Leo thought fondly.

 **I've never heard her raise her voice or say an unkind word to anyone, not even me or Gabe.**

"That woman is an angel," Annabeth muttered, still trying to grasp the severity of Percy's bad relationship with Gabe.

 **"Oh, Percy." She hugged me tight. "I can't believe it. You've grown since Christmas!"**

 **Her red-white-and-blue Sweet on America uniform smelled like the best things in the world: chocolate, liquorice, and all the other stuff she sold at the candy shop in Grand Central. She'd brought me a huge bag of "free samples," the way she always did when I came home.**

"Hands down, best mother ever," Jason thought aloud.

 **We sat together on the edge of the bed. While I attacked the blueberry sour strings, she ran her hand through my hair and demanded to know everything I hadn't put in my letters. She didn't mention anything about my getting expelled. She didn't seem to care about that. But was I okay? Was her little boy doing all right?**

Piper's eyes were soft, filled with compassion as she read about the relationship Percy had with his mother. With her loving eyes and her slight tilt of the head her expression resembled someone who had stumbled across a lost puppy.

 **I told her she was smothering me, and to lay off and all that, but secretly, I was really, really glad to see her.**

The corners of Annabeth's lips turned up.

 **From the other room, Gabe yelled, "Hey, Sally—how about some bean dip, huh?"**

Annabeth was no longer smiling.

 **I gritted my teeth.**

 **My mom is the nicest lady in the world. She should've been married to a millionaire, not to some jerk like Gabe.**

Everyone silently agreed.

 **For her sake, I tried to sound upbeat about my last days at Yancy Academy. I told her I wasn't too down about the expulsion. I'd lasted almost the whole year this time. I'd made some new friends. I'd done pretty well in Latin. And honestly, the fights hadn't been as bad as the headmaster said. I liked Yancy Academy. I really did. I put such a good spin on the year, I almost convinced myself. I started choking up, thinking about Grover and Mr. Brunner. Even Nancy Bobofit suddenly didn't seem so bad.**

"And that's saying something," Leo said, words dripping in sarcasm.

 **Until that trip to the museum . . .**

 **"What?" my mom asked. Her eyes tugged at my conscience, trying to pull out the secrets. "Did something scare you?"**

 **"No, Mom."**

Leo cleared his throat. "Well, it sure as hell scared me, and I wasn't even there."

"Same man, same" Jason agreed.

 **I felt bad lying. I wanted to tell her about Mrs. Dodds and the three old ladies with the yarn, but I thought it would sound stupid.**

Annabeth rolled her eyes so hard Piper swore she could she her brain.

 **She pursed her lips. She knew I was holding back, but she didn't push me.**

 **"I have a surprise for you," she said. "We're going to the beach."**

 **My eyes widened. "Montauk?"**

 **"Three nights—same cabin."**

 **"When?"**

 **She smiled. "As soon as I get changed."**

 **I couldn't believe it. My mom and I hadn't been to Montauk the last two summers, because Gabe said there wasn't enough money.**

"Yet he has enough money to play poker," Leo scoffed. "No money my ass."

 **Gabe appeared in the doorway and growled, "Bean dip, Sally? Didn't you hear me?"**

Piper clenched her teeth.

 **I wanted to punch him, but I met my mom's eyes and I understood she was offering me a deal: be nice to Gabe for a little while. Just until she was ready to leave for Montauk. Then we would get out of here.**

 **"I was on my way, honey," she told Gabe. "We were just talking about the trip."**

 **Gabe's eyes got small. "The trip? You mean you were serious about that?"**

Jason felt his insides twist, there was something distinctly not right about the way Gabe treated both Sally and Percy, and he didn't like it.

 **"I knew it," I muttered. "He won't let us go."**

 **"Of course he will," my mom said evenly. "Your stepfather is just worried about money. That's all. Besides," she added, "Gabriel won't have to settle for bean dip. I'll make him enough seven-layer dip for the whole weekend. Guacamole. Sour cream. The works."**

"Bribery," Leo said in dramatic admiration. "A woman after my own heart."

 **Gabe softened a bit. "So this money for your trip . . . it comes out of your clothes budget, right?"**

"He's buying beers, cigars and gambling but she's sacrificing necessities like clothing!" Piper outcried. "That's so wrong."

 **"Yes, honey," my mother said.**

 **"And you won't take my car anywhere but there and back."**

 **"We'll be very careful."**

 **Gabe scratched his double chin. "Maybe if you hurry with that seven-layer dip . . . And maybe if the kid apologises for interrupting my poker game."**

"He funded it!" Piper shouted, outraged.

 **Maybe if I kick you in your soft spot, I thought. And make you sing soprano for a week.**

Annabeth's look vacancy softened as her lips turned up.

 **But my mom's eyes warned me not to make him mad.**

 **Why did she put up with this guy? I wanted to scream. Why did she care what he thought?**

 _'I was just wondering the same thing,'_ Jason thought.

 **"I'm sorry," I muttered. "I'm really sorry I interrupted your incredibly important poker game. Please go back to it right now."**

 **Gabe's eyes narrowed. His tiny brain was probably trying to detect sarcasm in my statement.**

"The sarcasm is hard to miss I'll admit," Leo pointed out.

 **"Yeah, whatever," he decided.**

 **He went back to his game.**

"How did he even miss… how, even," Leo muttered to himself.

 **"Thank you, Percy," my mom said. "Once we get to Montauk, we'll talk more about . . . whatever you've forgotten to tell me, okay?"**

 **For a moment, I thought I saw anxiety in her eyes—the same fear I'd seen in Grover during the bus ride—as if my mom too felt an odd chill in the air.**

Leo shivered for dramatic effect.

 **But then her smile returned, and I figured I must have been mistaken. She ruffled my hair and went to make Gabe his seven-layer dip.**

 **An hour later we were ready to leave.**

 **Gabe took a break from his poker game long enough to watch me lug my mom's bags to the car. He kept griping and groaning about losing her cooking—and more important, his '78 Camaro—for the whole weekend.**

"More importantly," Jason scoffed.

Meanwhile Annabeth was fantasising about kicking Gabe hard enough to make him sing soprano.

 **"Not a scratch on this car, brain boy," he warned me as I loaded the last bag. "Not one little scratch."**

"He's like 12, he's not going to be driving," Piper mocked, the disgusted look on her face staying tight every time Gabe was mentioned.

 **Like I'd be the one driving. I was twelve.**

"Damn right," Piper muttered.

 **But that didn't matter to Gabe. If a seagull so much as pooped on his paint job, he'd find a way to blame me.**

 **Watching him lumber back toward the apartment building, I got so mad I did something I can't explain.**

"That happens often," Annabeth murmured to herself.

 **As Gabe reached the doorway, I made the hand gesture I'd seen Grover make on the bus, a sort of warding-off-evil gesture, a clawed hand over my heart, then a shoving movement toward Gabe. The screen door slammed shut so hard it whacked him in the butt and sent him flying up the staircase as if he'd been shot from a cannon.**

"That's gotta be some sort of sign," Leo said shaking his head.

Piper agreed. "Yeah, a sign that he should be going straight back to hell."

 **Maybe it was just the wind, or some freak accident with the hinges, but I didn't stay long enough to find out.**

 **I got in the Camaro and told my mom to step on it.**

"I've always fantasised about saying that," Leo thought aloud.

 **Our rental cabin was on the south shore, way out at the tip of Long Island. It was a little pastel box with faded curtains, half sunken into the dunes. There was always sand in the sheets and spiders**

Leo paused and gave a pointed look to Annabeth. He had witnessed the wrath of the Athena cabin after finding a spider at their dinner table only a few weeks ago.

 **in the cabinets, and most of the time the sea was too cold to swim in.**

 **I loved the place.**

 **We'd been going there since I was a baby. My mom had been going even longer. She never exactly said, but I knew why the beach was special to her. It was the place where she'd met my dad.**

Piper's expression had morphed from a look of disgust to one of love for the cute way that Percy referenced his mum.

 **As we got closer to Montauk, she seemed to grow younger, years of worry and work disappearing from her face. Her eyes turned the colour of the sea.**

Suddenly he warmth of Percy's sea green gaze burned the back of Annabeth's eyelids. She was flooded with nostalgia and loss, she just missed them so much.

 **We got there at sunset, opened all the cabin's windows, and went through our usual cleaning routine. We walked on the beach, fed blue corn chips to the seagulls,**

"Did you just say blue corn chips?" Jason asked bemused.

Leo reread the line as Annabeth nodded.

"Well okay then," Jason concluded, despite that that had not cleared up anything.

 **and munched on blue jelly beans, blue saltwater taffy, and all the other free samples my mom had brought from work.**

"Okay, what's with the blue?" Jason asked the group, pointedly to Annabeth.

As everyone stared at her she shrugged, slightly enjoying having the superiority of knowing all the answers.

 **I guess I should explain the blue food.**

"Yes please," said Jason.

 **See, Gabe had once told my mom there was no such thing. They had this fight, which seemed like a really small thing at the time. But ever since, my mom went out of her way to eat blue.**

"Nice Sally, sticking it to the man," Leo complimented.

 **She baked blue birthday cakes. She mixed blueberry smoothies. She bought blue-corn tortilla chips and brought home blue candy from the shop. This—along with keeping her maiden name, Jackson, rather than calling herself Mrs. Ugliano—was proof that she wasn't totally suckered by Gabe. She did have a rebellious streak, like me.**

Annabeth almost snorted. She was having a hard time thinking of any situation ever where Percy did what he was told.

 **When it got dark, we made a fire. We roasted hot dogs and marshmallows. Mom told me stories about when she was a kid, back before her parents died in the plane crash. She told me about the books she wanted to write someday, when she had enough money to quit the candy shop.**

Annabeth smiled as she thought of the books that Sally once dreamed of were her new reality.

 **Eventually, I got up the nerve to ask about what was always on my mind whenever we came to Montauk—my father.**

Piper remembered feeling the same way when her dad took her surfing.

 **Mom's eyes went all misty. I figured she would tell me the same things she always did, but I never got tired of hearing them.**

Piper sighed noticing how similar she and Percy were.

 **"He was kind, Percy," she said. "Tall, handsome, and powerful. But gentle, too. You have his black hair, you know, and his green eyes."**

 **Mom fished a blue jelly bean out of her candy bag. "I wish he could see you, Percy. He would be so proud."**

Leo remembered hearing the same thing from his mum. Though he thought sadly, he probably has more to be proud of.

 **I wondered how she could say that. What was so great about me? A dyslexic, hyperactive boy with a D+ report card, kicked out of school for the sixth time in six years.**

"Don't say that," Annabeth chastised in a sudden outburst.

 **"How old was I?" I asked. "I mean . . . when he left?"**

 **She watched the flames. "He was only with me for one summer, Percy. Right here at this beach. This cabin."**

 **"But . . . he knew me as a baby."**

 **"No, honey. He knew I was expecting a baby, but he never saw you. He had to leave before you were born."**

 **I tried to square that with the fact that I seemed to remember . . . something about my father. A warm glow. A smile.**

"Did Nep- I mean Poseidon visit him?" Jason asked. Annabeth nodded, noticing that much like his son Poseidon didn't carry much of a taste for the rules.

 **I had always assumed he knew me as a baby. My mom had never said it outright, but still, I'd felt it must be true. Now, to be told that he'd never even seen me . . .**

"That sucks," Leo stated.

 **I felt angry at my father. Maybe it was stupid, but I resented him for going on that ocean voyage, for not having the guts to marry my mom. He'd left us, and now we were stuck with Smelly Gabe.**

All the demigods nodded with sympathy, having felt at least once some sort of anger towards their godly parent.

 **"Are you going to send me away again?" I asked her. "To another boarding school?"**

 **She pulled a marshmallow from the fire.**

 **"I don't know, honey." Her voice was heavy. "I think . . . I think we'll have to do something."**

 **"Because you don't want me around?"**

Piper gasped, as how could he say that to his loving mother. Her look of shock went unnoticed by Annabeth as she sighed thinking about the more sinister reason Sally would've sent Percy to boarding schools for.

 **I regretted the words as soon as they were out.**

"Good," Piper stated sharing conflicted thoughts about the usually sweet kid.

 **My mom's eyes welled with tears. She took my hand, squeezed it tight. "Oh, Percy, no. I—I have to, honey. For your own good. I have to send you away."**

 **Her words reminded me of what Mr. Brunner had said—that it was best for me to leave Yancy.**

"Ooh, remember that harsh send off by good ol' Bruns," Leo winced.

 **"Because I'm not normal," I said.**

Annabeth almost snorted as she said, "Understatement."

 **"You say that as if it's a bad thing, Percy. But you don't realise how important you are. I thought Yancy Academy would be far enough away. I thought you'd finally be safe."**

 **"Safe from what?"**

"Oh just you know, death." Leo remarked, sarcasm dripping through his words.

 **She met my eyes, and a flood of memories came back to me—all the weird, scary things that had ever happened to me, some of which I'd tried to forget.**

 **During third grade, a man in a black trench coat had stalked me on the playground. When the teachers threatened to call the police, he went away growling, but no one believed me when I told them that under his broad-brimmed hat, the man only had one eye, right in the middle of his head.**

"Cyclops?" Piper questioned. Everyone nodded, confirming her suspicion.

"Wait was that Poseidon checking up on him?" Jason asked Annabeth, who nodded unsurely.

 **Before that—a really early memory. I was in preschool, and a teacher accidentally put me down for a nap in a cot that a snake had slithered into. My mom screamed when she came to pick me up and found me playing with a limp, scaly rope I'd somehow managed to strangle to death with my meaty toddler hands.**

"That sounds familiar…" Leo thought.

"It's just like Hercules, " Piper and Jason said in perfect sync. The pair looked at each other and blushed immediately as Leo rolled his eyes.

"Nerds."

 **In every single school, something creepy had happened, something unsafe, and I was forced to move.**

 **I knew I should tell my mom about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds at the art museum, about my weird hallucination that I had sliced my math teacher into dust with a sword.**

' _You should've Seaweed Brain_ ,' Annabeth thought, anticipating what was soon and inevitably happen next.

 **But I couldn't make myself tell her. I had a strange feeling the news would end our trip to Montauk, and I didn't want that.**

Annabeth just sighed and shook her head.

 **"I've tried to keep you as close to me as I could," my mom said. "They told me that was a mistake. But there's only one other option, Percy—the place your father wanted to send you. And I just . . . I just can't stand to do it."**

With his eyes Leo asked Piper, "Camp Half Blood?"

Piper nodded in return.

 **"My father wanted me to go to a special school?"**

 **"Not a school," she said softly. "A summer camp."**

 **My head was spinning. Why would my dad—who hadn't even stayed around long enough to see me born— talk to my mom about a summer camp? And if it was so important, why hadn't she ever mentioned it before?**

"Those are some pretty good points," Jason thought aloud.

 **"I'm sorry, Percy," she said, seeing the look in my eyes. "But I can't talk about it. I—I couldn't send you to that place. It might mean saying good-bye to you for good.**

 **"For good? But if it's only a summer camp . . ."**

"It's not if you stay year round," Annabeth added.

 **She turned toward the fire, and I knew from her expression that if I asked her any more questions she would start to cry.**

 **That night I had a vivid dream.**

"Get used to it," Jason added sympathetically.

 **It was storming on the beach, and two beautiful animals, a white horse and a golden eagle, were trying to kill each other at the edge of the surf.**

The gears in Jason's head were churning. The eagle was his father's animal.

 **The eagle swooped down and slashed the horse's muzzle with its huge talons. The horse reared up and kicked at the eagle's wings. As they fought, the ground rumbled, and a monstrous voice chuckled somewhere beneath the earth, goading the animals to fight harder.**

"Hades?" Piper questioned. But her question was answered only with the motioning of zipped lips from Annabeth.

 **I ran toward them, knowing I had to stop them from killing each other, but I was running in slow motion. I knew I would be too late. I saw the eagle dive down, its beak aimed at the horse's wide eyes, and I screamed, No!**

 **I woke with a start.**

"That was pretty intense," Leo commented. Reliving the tension as Piper and Jason adamantly and competitively tried to decode the dream.

 **Outside, it really was storming, the kind of storm that cracks trees and blows down houses. There was no horse or eagle on the beach, just lightning making false daylight, and twenty-foot waves pounding the dunes like artillery.**

 **With the next thunderclap, my mom woke. She sat up, eyes wide, and said, "Hurricane."**

In an offhand thought Annabeth silently asked the book, ' _Where was Grover?_ '

 **I knew that was crazy. Long Island never sees hurricanes this early in the summer. But the ocean seemed to have forgotten.**

"Ooh, that's some nice personification there from Jackson," Leo commentated. This earned him a few surprised and bewildered looks from the others. "What?" he said. "I listen in english class… sometimes."

 **Over the roar of the wind, I heard a distant bellow, an angry, tortured sound that made my hair stand on end.**

Annabeth paled, it was already there.

 **Then a much closer noise, like mallets in the sand. A desperate voice—someone yelling, pounding on our cabin door.**

Jason and Piper listened to Leo, hanging on to every word. They were in a silent competition to see who would figure it out first.

 **My mother sprang out of bed in her nightgown and threw open the lock.**

 **Grover stood framed in the doorway against a backdrop of pouring rain. But he wasn't . . . he wasn't exactly Grover.**

"Yeah, that's reassuring," Leo said.

 **"Searching all night," he gasped. "What were you thinking?"**

 **My mother looked at me in terror—not scared of Grover, but of why he'd come.**

 **"Percy," she said, shouting to be heard over the rain. "What happened at school? What didn't you tell me?"**

"Oh nothing I just almost died," Jason muttered to himself.

 **I was frozen, looking at Grover. I couldn't understand what I was seeing.**

 **"O Zeu kai alloi theoi!" he yelled.**

"Something Zeus and gods right?" Jason said excitedly.

Annabeth nodded, Jason had been doing annoyingly well in ancient greek.

 **"It's right behind me! Didn't you tell her?"**

 **I was too shocked to register that he'd just cursed in Ancient Greek, and I'd understood him perfectly. I was too shocked to wonder how Grover had gotten here by himself in the middle of the night. Because Grover didn't have his pants on—**

"Ugh that's an unpleasant picture," Leo joked.

 **and where his legs should be . . . where his legs should be . . .**

"Tentacles," Leo deadpanned, unwittingly bringing the image of Ursula to everyone's mine.

 **My mom looked at me sternly and talked in a tone she'd never used before: "Percy. Tell me now!"**

 **I stammered something about the old ladies at the fruit stand, and Mrs. Dodds, and my mom stared at me, her face deathly pale in the flashes of lightning.**

Piper's heart was jumping out of her chest in anticipation.

 **She grabbed her purse, tossed me my rain jacket, and said, "Get to the car. Both of you. Go!"**

 **Grover ran for the Camaro—but he wasn't running, exactly.**

"Le gasp," Leo stated, earning him a light slap from the tanned brunette to his right.

 **He was trotting, shaking his shaggy hindquarters,**

'Faun,' Jason immediately thought.

 **and suddenly his story about a muscular disorder in his legs made sense to me. I understood how he could run so fast and still limp when he walked.**

 **Because where his feet should be, there were no feet. There were cloven hooves.**

"So Grover's a satyr then, " Piper asked Annabeth, who nodded readily.

"Alright that's the end of that chapter. Who's up next?" Leo asked as he dramatically closed the book.

Annabeth extended her hand towards him. "I guess it's me."

 **4\. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**

 _ **A/N**_

 _ **Reviews are encouraged below, I hope you like this chapter!**_

 _ **Lots of Love,**_

 _ **Wisdomsqueen**_


	5. Bull fights ft Mum

A/N

 **Disclaimer- Everything in bold except A/N's is Rick's**

* * *

"Alright that's the end of that chapter. Who's up next?" Leo asked as he dramatically closed the book.

Annabeth extended her hand towards him. "I guess it's me."

 **4\. My Mother Teaches Me Bullfighting**

This chapter title earned a nod of approval from Jason before Annabeth continued reading.

 **We tore through the night along dark country roads. Wind slammed against the Camaro. Rain lashed the windshield. I didn't know how my mom could see anything, but she kept her foot on the gas.**

"Damn, this lady's on a mission," Leo appraised. "I mean if a goat man came to me in the middle of the night and cursed at my son I don't know if I'd be so willing to help him."

Annabeth's eyebrows drew together, "She's not helping Grover, she's helping Percy."

"Yeah I know," Leo said before muttering unconvincingly. "But like the goat man"

Annabeth gave up.

 **Every time there was a flash of lightning, I looked at Grover sitting next to me in the backseat and I wondered if I'd gone insane, or if he was wearing some kind of shag-carpet pants.**

Leo kept the shag carpet reference in mind for when he next saw Coach Hedge.

 **But, no, the smell was one I remembered from kindergarten field trips to the petting zoo— lanolin, like from wool. The smell of a wet barnyard animal.**

"Charming," Piper drawled.

 **All I could think to say was, "So, you and my mom . . . know each other?"**

Annabeth let out the smallest of sighs. ' _Such a kelp head.'_

 **Grover's eyes flitted to the rearview mirror, though there were no cars behind us. "Not exactly," he said. "I mean, we've never met in person. But she knew I was watching you."**

"Bad word choice," Jason cringed.

 **"Watching me?"**

 **"Keeping tabs on you. Making sure you were okay. But I wasn't faking being your friend," he added hastily. "I am your friend."**

 **"Um . . . what are you, exactly?"**

Piper laughed quietly through her nose at Percy's not so smooth social skills.

 **"That doesn't matter right now."**

 **"It doesn't matter? From the waist down, my best friend is a donkey—"**

Leo and Piper collectively snorted as she read the last word, whilst Annabeth smirked knowingly.

 **Grover let out a sharp, throaty "Blaa-ha-ha!"**

Suddenly they all burst out laughing, clutching their stomachs and gasping for air in all the proper dramatics. The 'Blaa-ha-ha' which caused the large reaction was preformed in all its horrendous glory by none other than Annabeth. Her remediation and horribly inaccurate impersonation was enough to set her and the others off in giggles.

Once they'd all calmed down Annabeth continued reading, a smile stuck on her lips.

 **I'd heard him make that sound before, but I'd always assumed it was a nervous laugh. Now I realised it was more of an irritated bleat.**

 **"Goat!" he cried.**

 **"What?"**

 **"I'm a goat from the waist down."**

 **"You just said it didn't matter."**

Annabeth took a deep breath.

 **"Blaa-ha-ha!**

Leftover giggles remerged at Annabeth's still horrendous impersonation.

 **There are satyrs who would trample you under hoof for such an insult!"**

 **"Whoa. Wait. Satyrs. You mean like . . . Mr. Brunner's myths?"**

 **"Were those old ladies at the fruit stand a myth, Percy? Was Mrs. Dodds a myth?"**

 **"So you admit there was a Mrs. Dodds!"**

" _Oh here we go_ ," Annabeth thought.

 **"Of course."**

 **"Then why—"**

 **"The less you knew, the fewer monsters you'd attract," Grover said, like that should be perfectly obvious. "We put Mist over the humans' eyes.**

Piper refrained from rolling her eyes too hard. She had not had the best experiences with the Mist.

 **We hoped you'd think the Kindly One was a hallucination. But it was no good. You started to realise who you are."**

"Hey Annabeth," Leo interrupted. She paused her reading to shoot Leo an asking glance. "Why are called Kindly ones? I mean they're already called furies why bother with a less macho nickname."

Annabeth attempted to hide her sigh. "Because names have power outside camp and calling someone's name aka. Fury over and over will only attract them to you. So kindly ones is like a codename for when you need to speak about them."

Leo rubbed chin and nodded thoughtfully.

 **"Who I—wait a minute, what do you mean?"**

 **The weird bellowing noise rose up again somewhere behind us, closer than before. Whatever was chasing us was still on our trail.**

Piper and Jason exchanged a glance and the competition was on. Who was the monster?

 **"Percy," my mom said, "there's too much to explain and not enough time. We have to get you to safety."**

 **"Safety from what? Who's after me?"**

Piper inched forward.

 **"Oh, nobody much," Grover said, obviously still miffed about the donkey comment. "Just the Lord of the Dead and a few of his blood-thirstiest minions."**

Annabeth snorted.

"Well at least the whole 'KINDLY ones' makes sense now." Leo said pointedly to Annabeth. She just rolled her eyes in response.

 **"Grover!"**

 **"Sorry, Mrs. Jackson. Could you drive faster, please?"**

 **I tried to wrap my mind around what was happening, but I couldn't do it. I knew this wasn't a dream. I had no imagination.**

"Who admits that?!" Leo exclaimed.

 **I could never dream up something this weird.**

 **My mom made a hard left. We swerved onto a narrower road, racing past darkened farmhouses and wooded hills and PICK YOUR OWN STRAWBERRIES signs on white picket fences.**

"You know I've never picked my own strawberries," Leo admitted.

Piper turned to him. "That's because everyone's afraid you're going to light yourself on fire every time you see a bee."

"It was ONE time, Pipes. Jeez."

 **"Where are we going?" I asked.**

 **"The summer camp I told you about." My mother's voice was tight; she was trying for my sake not to be scared. "The place your father wanted to send you."**

 **"The place you didn't want me to go."**

 **"Please, dear," my mother begged. "This is hard enough. Try to understand. You're in danger."**

 **"Because some old ladies cut yarn."**

Piper cringed at he's naivety. ' _Oh hun, you wouldn't be saying that if you knew what that meant,'_ she thought.

 **"Those weren't old ladies," Grover said. "Those were the Fates. Do you know what it means—the fact they appeared in front of you? They only do that when you're about to . . . when someone's about to die."**

Jason, who had been relatively quiet throughout this chapter spoke up. "Oh jeez, Grover. His mum's right there and your going to freak him out even more than the poor kid already is." The sympathetic nature of Jason's outburst kind of took everyone by surprise, so there was a slight awkward pause before Annabeth hurriedly began reading again.

 **"Whoa. You said 'you.'"**

Jason gave everyone a look as if to say, 'See what I mean.'

 **"No I didn't. I said 'someone.'"**

 **"You meant 'you.' As in me."**

 **"I meant you, like 'someone.' Not you, you."**

 **"Boys!" my mom said.**

 **She pulled the wheel hard to the right, and I got a glimpse of a figure she'd swerved to avoid—a dark fluttering shape now lost behind us in the storm.**

Piper and Jason's eyes narrowed simultaneously, as they hung off every word Annabeth said, trying to find clues as to what the monster would be.

 **"What was that?" I asked.**

 **"We're almost there," my mother said, ignoring my question. "Another mile. Please. Please. Please."**

Annabeth felt her heartstrings pull, pleading with Sally for them to make it. Even though she knew what inevitably was about to happen.

 **I didn't know where there was, but I found myself leaning forward in the car, anticipating, wanting us to arrive.**

Piper, Jason and Leo all felt the same anticipation as Percy. They were subconsciously urging the car to drive faster, for them to find camp and safety.

 **Outside, nothing but rain and darkness—the kind of empty countryside you get way out on the tip of Long Island. I thought about Mrs. Dodds and the moment when she'd changed into the thing with pointed teeth and leathery wings. My limbs went numb from delayed shock. She really hadn't been human. She'd meant to kill me.**

Jason felt a twinge sympathy for Percy, he hadn't gotten the proper training, or even the knowledge of who he was until someone had tried to kill him.

 **Then I thought about Mr. Brunner . . . and the sword he had thrown me. Before I could ask Grover about that, the hair rose on the back of my neck. There was a blinding flash, a jaw-rattling boom!, and our car exploded.**

Leo's eyebrows shot up to his hairline.

 **I remember feeling weightless, like I was being crushed, fried, and hosed down all at the same time.**

' _Venti?'_ Jason thought of immediately, but he couldn't be too sure. The storm spirits weren't the only ones who could strike a car.

 **I peeled my forehead off the back of the driver's seat and said, "Ow."**

 **"Percy!" my mom shouted.**

 **"I'm okay. . . ."**

 **I tried to shake off the daze. I wasn't dead. The car hadn't really exploded. We'd swerved into a ditch. Our driver's-side doors were wedged in the mud. The roof had cracked open like an eggshell and rain was pouring in.**

Annabeth's eyes narrowed in annoyance as she came to the same conclusion as Piper.

"Lightning?"

 **Lightning. That was the only explanation. We'd been blasted right off the road.**

Jason had a not so pleasant thought, ' _Jupiter._ '

 **Next to me in the backseat was a big motionless lump. "Grover!"**

Leo contained his giggle at the 'big motionless lump' comment.

 **He was slumped over, blood trickling from the side of his mouth. I shook his furry hip, thinking, No! Even if you are half barnyard animal, you're my best friend and I don't want you to die!**

A small smile fell on Annabeth's lips.

 **Then he groaned "Food," and I knew there was hope.**

Annabeth snorted as Leo laughed.

"That kid definitely has his priorities straight."

 **"Percy," my mother said, "we have to . . ." Her voice faltered.**

 **I looked back. In a flash of lightning, through the mud-spattered rear windshield, I saw a figure lumbering toward us on the shoulder of the road. The sight of it made my skin crawl.**

Piper and Jason were practically falling off their seats in anticipation.

 **It was a dark silhouette of a huge guy, like a football player. He seemed to be holding a blanket over his head. His top half was bulky and fuzzy. His upraised hands made it look like he had horns.**

' _Horns, large, furry_.' The key words danced around impatiently in Piper's head looking for a connection to be made.

 **I swallowed hard. "Who is—"**

 **"Percy," my mother said, deadly serious. "Get out of the car."**

"Hurry," Leo muttered under his breath. He had taken to gnawing on his knuckles in worry.

 **My mother threw herself against the driver's-side door. It was jammed shut in the mud. I tried mine. Stuck too. I looked up desperately at the hole in the roof. It might've been an exit, but the edges were sizzling and smoking.**

"Just like me aye," Leo said suggestively. He was desperately trying to diffuse the tension and worry that he was feeling.

Piper rolled her eyes.

 **"Climb out the passenger's side!" my mother told me. "Percy—you have to run. Do you see that big tree?"**

' _Camp!_ ' Leo desperately thought. ' _They'd practically made it._ '

 **"What?"**

 **Another flash of lightning, and through the smoking hole in the roof I saw the tree she meant: a huge, White House Christmas tree–sized pine at the crest of the nearest hill.**

 **"That's the property line," my mom said. "Get over that hill and you'll see a big farmhouse down in the valley. Run and don't look back. Yell for help. Don't stop until you reach the door."**

' _Like he would leave you behind_ ,' Annabeth mentally scoffed.

 **"Mom, you're coming too."**

"Mortals can't cross, she won't be able to get through!" Piper gasped.

Annabeth nodded.

 **Her face was pale, her eyes as sad as when she looked at the ocean.**

 **"No!" I shouted. "You are coming with me. Help me carry Grover."**

Piper's face twitched up in a sad smile.

 **"Food!" Grover moaned, a little louder.**

"Not helping dude," Leo muttered.

 **The man with the blanket on his head kept coming toward us, making his grunting, snorting noises.**

' _Grunting, snorting, animal like noises._ ' Piper's brain was rushing for conclusions. Whilst Jason just sat quietly, eyes closed as went through every mythological beast he knew of.

 **As he got closer, I realised he couldn't be holding a blanket over his head, because his hands—huge meaty hands—were swinging at his sides. There was no blanket. Meaning the bulky, fuzzy mass that was too big to be his head . . . was his head. And the points that looked like horns . . .**

"Le gasp! The things that looked like horns were in fact HORNS!" Leo exclaimed, clutching his chest dramatically.

Annabeth rolled her eyes but was kind of glad that Leo was making jokes, it distracted her from the past.

 **"He doesn't want us," my mother told me. "He wants you. Besides, I can't cross the property line."**

 **"But . . ."**

 **"We don't have time, Percy. Go. Please."**

"Yeah that won't work," Annabeth mumbled.

 **I got mad, then—mad at my mother, at Grover the goat, at the thing with horns that was lumbering toward us slowly and deliberately like, like a bull.**

' _Bull, bull, bu-_ ' Piper's eyes lit up in recognition half a second before Jason's eyebrows shot up.

"Minotaur!" she exclaimed, knocking her chair over in excitement.

"Mino-" Jason yelled half a second after Piper's outburst. He sighed as Piper's words registered, she'd beaten him.

They both turned to Annabeth for quick conformation. The blonde in question was trying her very best not to laugh as she nodded.

"YES!" Piper celebrated, quickly picking up her discarded chair.

Jason began applauding his girlfriend as she curtseyed and sat back in her chair.

Annabeth waited patiently for them to clam down before she continued.

 **I climbed across Grover and pushed the door open into the rain. "We're going together. Come on, Mom."**

 **"I told you—"**

 **"Mom! I am not leaving you. Help me with Grover."**

"He's so stubborn," Piper commented.

 **I didn't wait for her answer. I scrambled outside, dragging Grover from the car. He was surprisingly light, but I couldn't have carried him very far if my mom hadn't come to my aid.**

 **Together, we draped Grover's arms over our shoulders and started stumbling uphill through wet waist-high grass.**

Now that Jason was listening to the story properly without trying solve anything he quickly realised Percy's dire situation and began to worry.

 **Glancing back, I got my first clear look at the monster. He was seven feet tall, easy, his arms and legs like something from the cover of Muscle Man magazine—bulging biceps and triceps and a bunch of other 'ceps, all stuffed like baseballs under vein-webbed skin.**

"Holy Hera," Piper breathed.

 **He wore no clothes except underwear—I mean, bright white Fruit of the Looms—**

Leo laughed. "Fruit of the Looms."

 **which would've looked funny, except that the top half of his body was so scary. Coarse brown hair started at about his belly button and got thicker as it reached his shoulders.**

Jason twisted his nose up to show his appreciation of Percy's very detailed description.

 **His neck was a mass of muscle and fur leading up to his enormous head, which had a snout as long as my arm, snotty nostrils with a gleaming brass ring, cruel black eyes, and horns—enormous black-and-white horns with points you just couldn't get from an electric sharpener.**

Leo scoffed. "Priorities."

 **I recognised the monster, all right. He had been in one of the first stories Mr. Brunner told us. But he couldn't be real.**

"Well you better believe its real pretty damn soon." Leo said with sad laugh.

 **I blinked the rain out of my eyes. "That's—"**

 **"Pasiphae's son," my mother said. "I wish I'd known how badly they want to kill you."**

 **"But he's the Min—"**

 **"Don't say his name," she warned. "Names have power."**

Annabeth paused to give a pointed look to Leo.

 **The pine tree was still way too far—a hundred yards uphill at least.**

"They're not going to make it are they?" Piper asked.

Annabeth decided just to ignore her.

 **I glanced behind me again.**

 **The bull-man hunched over our car, looking in the windows—or not looking, exactly. More like snuffling, nuzzling. I wasn't sure why he bothered, since we were only about fifty feet away.**

"He's deaf right?" Jason questioned Annabeth.

She nodded. "Yeah and his eyesight isn't too crash hot either."

 **"Food?" Grover moaned.**

 **"Shhh," I told him. "Mom, what's he doing? Doesn't he see us?"**

"He should invest in some glasses," Leo suggested.

"Who, the Minotaur?" Piper said cautiously.

"Who else."

"But why would we want him to see better?" Piper continued.

"Should've gone to spec savers is all I'm saying."

 **"His sight and hearing are terrible," she said. "He goes by smell. But he'll figure out where we are soon enough."**

 **As if on cue, the bull-man bellowed in rage. He picked up Gabe's Camaro by the torn roof, the chassis creaking and groaning. He raised the car over his head and threw it down the road. It slammed into the wet asphalt and skidded in a shower of sparks for about half a mile before coming to a stop. The gas tank exploded.**

"Good." Jason said with unexpected venom.

"How is that good?" Piper asked.

"It's Gabe's."

 **Not a scratch, I remembered Gabe saying.**

 **Oops.**

Jason threw his arms out to his sides as if to say, ' _my point exactly_ '.

 **"Percy," my mom said. "When he sees us, he'll charge. Wait until the last second, then jump out of the way— directly sideways. He can't change directions very well once he's charging. Do you understand?"**

"Well, at least the chapter title makes sense now." Leo observed.

Annabeth's lips twitched as it dawned on her. "My mother teaches me bull fighting…"

 **"How do you know all this?"**

 **"I've been worried about an attack for a long time. I should have expected this. I was selfish, keeping you near me."**

"You are anything but selfish!" Annabeth exclaimed.

Everyone stared at her as her cheeks tinged. "Well it's true."

 **"Keeping me near you? But—"**

 **Another bellow of rage, and the bull-man started tromping uphill.**

 **He'd smelled us.**

Leo had subconsciously started to chew on his knuckles again.

 **The pine tree was only a few more yards, but the hill was getting steeper and slicker, and Grover wasn't getting any lighter.**

 **The bull-man closed in. Another few seconds and he'd be on top of us.**

"They're not going to make it," Piper mumbled.

 **My mother must've been exhausted, but she shouldered Grover. "Go, Percy! Separate! Remember what I said."**

 **I didn't want to split up, but I had the feeling she was right—it was our only chance. I sprinted to the left, turned, and saw the creature bearing down on me. His black eyes glowed with hate. He reeked like rotten meat.**

Leo twitched up his nose.

 **He lowered his head and charged, those razor-sharp horns aimed straight at my chest.**

 **The fear in my stomach made me want to bolt, but that wouldn't work. I could never outrun this thing.**

Annabeth suppressed a smile. She was impressed with his random logical thinking.

 **So I held my ground, and at the last moment, I jumped to the side.**

 **The bull-man stormed past like a freight train, then bellowed with frustration and turned, but not toward me this time, toward my mother, who was setting Grover down in the grass.**

Piper and Leo's eyebrows shot up simultaneously whilst Jason chewed hard on his lip.

 **We'd reached the crest of the hill. Down the other side I could see a valley, just as my mother had said, and the lights of a farmhouse glowing yellow through the rain. But that was half a mile away. We'd never make it.**

Piper sighed. ' _I knew it._ '

 **The bull-man grunted, pawing the ground. He kept eyeing my mother, who was now retreating slowly downhill, back toward the road, trying to lead the monster away from Grover.**

 **"Run, Percy!" she told me. "I can't go any farther. Run!"**

Jason was shaking his head, disagreeing with Sally's plea. ' _He wouldn't do that_.'

 **But I just stood there, frozen in fear, as the monster charged her.**

Annabeth's steely eyes melted and turned soft knowingly.

 **She tried to sidestep, as she'd told me to do, but the monster had learned his lesson. His hand shot out and grabbed her by the neck as she tried to get away.**

"No," Piper whispered.

 **He lifted her as she struggled, kicking and pummelling the air.**

 **"Mom!"**

Leo was suddenly very sullen. ' _No one deserves to see their mother die.'_

 **She caught my eyes, managed to choke out one last word: "Go!" Then, with an angry roar, the monster closed his fists around my mother's neck, and she dissolved before my eyes, melting into light, a shimmering golden form, as if she were a holographic projection. A blinding flash, and she was simply . . . gone.**

Piper was in utter shock as she shook her head in disbelief.

Whilst everyone else was caught up in the shock of Sally's death Jason felt forehead creased in confusion. _Sally was human, why was she melting into a light?_

 **"No!"**

 **Anger replaced my fear. Newfound strength burned in my limbs—the same rush of energy I'd gotten when Mrs. Dodds grew talons.**

 **The bull-man bore down on Grover, who lay helpless in the grass. The monster hunched over, snuffling my best friend, as if he were about to lift Grover up and make him dissolve too.**

 **I couldn't allow that.**

Annabeth swelled with pride.

 **I stripped off my red rain jacket.**

 **"Hey!" I screamed, waving the jacket, running to one side of the monster. "Hey, stupid! Ground beef!"**

Leo nodded in approval. "Ground beef," he repeated appreciatively.

 **"Raaaarrrrr!" The monster turned toward me, shaking his meaty fists.**

 **I had an idea—a stupid idea, but better than no idea at all.**

Annabeth snorted. "Story of your life, Seaweed brain. Story of your life."

 **I put my back to the big pine tree and waved my red jacket in front of the bull-man, thinking I'd jump out of the way at the last moment.**

 **But it didn't happen like that.**

"Cause why would it?" Leo chimed.

 **The bull-man charged too fast, his arms out to grab me whichever way I tried to dodge.**

Jason winced hoping desperately that somehow Percy would get out of this okay. He had no weapon.

 **Time slowed down. My legs tensed. I couldn't jump sideways, so I leaped straight up, kicking off from the creature's head, using it as a springboard, turning in midair, and landing on his neck.**

Jason's jaw hit the floor.

"Dayum," Leo drawled. "The kid's got skills." Piper nodded in agreement.

Annabeth kept quiet but the surprised smile on her lips gave it all away, she was impressed.

 **How did I do that? I didn't have time to figure it out.**

Jason giggled. His too wide eyes slightly concerned Piper but she decided to let it slide.

 **A millisecond later, the monster's head slammed into the tree and the impact nearly knocked my teeth out.**

Leo winced.

 **The bull-man staggered around, trying to shake me. I locked my arms around his horns to keep from being thrown. Thunder and lightning were still going strong. The rain was in my eyes. The smell of rotten meat burned my nostrils.**

"Fun," Piper muttered, still looking cautiously at her boyfriend.

 **The monster shook himself around and bucked like a rodeo bull. He should have just backed up into the tree and smashed me flat, but I was starting to realise that this thing had only one gear: forward.**

"Like a kangaroo," Leo commented.

"What?"

"You know, one way only? Forward." He was met with blank stares. "Kangaroos can't go backwards or sideways, okay." Piper slowly nodded but the confusion never left her eyes.

Annabeth hurriedly continued.

 **Meanwhile, Grover started groaning in the grass. I wanted to yell at him to shut up, but the way I was getting tossed around, if I opened my mouth I'd bite my own tongue off.**

 **"Food!" Grover moaned.**

"He gets me," Leo said.

 **The bull-man wheeled toward him, pawed the ground again, and got ready to charge. I thought about how he had squeezed the life out of my mother, made her disappear in a flash of light, and rage filled me like high-octane fuel. I got both hands around one horn and I pulled backward with all my might. The monster tensed, gave a surprised grunt, then—snap!**

"Woah, wait. Did he just?" Jason stammered. "Did he just pull off the Minotaur's horn?"

Annabeth was smiling. "Yep."

The other three demigods were completely flabbergasted, letting the information gradually sink in.

Then Leo broke the awed silence, "Well now I know for sure that he was better than me in gym."

 **The bull-man screamed and flung me through the air. I landed flat on my back in the grass. My head smacked against a rock.**

"Aww jeez, c'mon Percy." Piper muttered. He was so close to safety.

 **When I sat up, my vision was blurry, but I had a horn in my hands, a ragged bone weapon the size of a knife.**

 **The monster charged.**

Jason, who was now more than slightly in awe of Percy felt himself leaning into the story, anticipating how Percy could beat the Minotaur.

 **Without thinking, I rolled to one side and came up kneeling.**

' _Without thinking?_ ' Jason screamed in his head. It had taken him years of practice to have that sort of battle instinct.

 **As the monster barrelled past, I drove the broken horn straight into his side, right up under his furry rib cage.**

Leo clapped in appreciation.

 **The bull-man roared in agony. He flailed, clawing at his chest, then began to disintegrate—not like my mother, in a flash of golden light,**

Piper only just then recalled that Percy's mother for some reason disintegrated into the light. Piper knew that this meant that something was not normal about her death.

 **but like crumbling sand, blown away in chunks by the wind, the same way Mrs. Dodds had burst apart.**

 **The monster was gone.**

 **The rain had stopped. The storm still rumbled, but only in the distance. I smelled like livestock and my knees were shaking.**

Leo's eyes went soft. He couldn't have done all that at 12. Then Leo had a depressing thought, ' _Could I even do that now?'_

 **My head felt like it was splitting open. I was weak and scared and trembling with grief. I'd just seen my mother vanish. I wanted to lie down and cry, but there was Grover, needing my help, so I managed to haul him up and stagger down into the valley, toward the lights of the farmhouse.**

No one spoke a word but you could see in everyone's eyes that they really felt for the 12 year old. He'd already accomplished and lost so much, just a few chapters into the story.

 **I was crying, calling for my mother, but I held on to Grover—I wasn't going to let him go.**

Annabeth's sad smile crawled back up to her lips.

 **The last thing I remember is collapsing on a wooden porch, looking up at a ceiling fan circling above me, moths flying around a yellow light, and the stern faces of a familiar-looking bearded man and a pretty girl, her blond hair curled like a princess's.**

Annabeth's cheeks subtly gained a pink tinge as Leo called out. "So that's Chiron right, but who's the girl?"

Piper took one look at Annabeth's blush and smirked.

 **They both looked down at me, and the girl said, "He's the one. He must be."**

Annabeth snorted as Piper simultaneously tried to contain her laughter.

"She's a forward," Leo commented, completely unaware of Annabeth's part in this story.

 **"Silence, Annabeth," the man said. "He's still conscious. Bring him inside."**

Piper couldn't hold her giggles back any longer as she burst out laughing. Leo quickly joined in.

Jason smiled teasingly as he said, "So the first thing you ever said to your boyfriend was, 'He's the one. He must be.' That's absolute gold."

Annabeth couldn't help but laugh. "It's not at all what it sounded like."

Piper shot her a disbelieving glance that simply said, 'Yeah right!'.

"I'm not kidding," Annabeth said through her laugh. "It's not that funny."

"Not that funny! You told a bloodied up barely conscious guy that fell on your porch that he was the one, WHEN YOU WERE TWELVE!" Leo argued. "How is that not funny."

"Well when you put it that way, it sounds ridiculous."

"Because it is!"

After everyone had calmed down Annabeth closed the book. "I'm starved, do you guys want to go grab lunch." Everyone agreed and they decided to have a lunch break.

Jason couldn't stop looking at Annabeth, the girl he had heard screaming only an hour or two ago was so different from the smiling blonde standing in front of him now. When Piper questioned his stares he simply said, "I've never seen her so happy."

Piper couldn't help but agree.

* * *

A/N

 **HEY EVERYONE!**

 **I'm not giving up on this story anytime soon it's just a long process.**

 **I love all of your reviews and they encourage me to keep writing so keep them coming**

 **Lots of Love,**

 **Wisdomsqueen**


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